Thread: Razor Restoration - Lessons learned

I decided to try my hand at the restoration of a straight...
I talked with a guy down at the local knife shop and ended up buying some buffalo horn to make the new scales with. I had this grand idea of how everything would turn out.

I learned a few lessons:

First and foremost: people who said that working with horn is like working with wood are big fat liars. The buffalo horn was like working with solid granite! I have honestly worked with softer steel before. I spent hours just trying to get the material thin enough for razor scales, and their still about 1/32" wider than I'd wanted.

Second : no matter how straight you think your drill is, you will drill the pin holes at an angle... both times... need to invest in a drill press.

Third : Razor scales should be flat on the bottom, they don't need to be rounded.

Next time around should produce better results. That said however, I am very pleased with the outcome. I have a little more work to do on the blade, to clean up some very fine scratches, but it's fully clean and usable now. Just doesn't have that perfect mirror finish yet.

It does have a little tarnish and pitting, but it almost looks decorative.

Here's the before picture. I forgot to take the completed pictures, so you'll have to live with my crappy webcam pic until I can get some better photos later tonight.