Thread: Making and Using Paper Buffing Masks

A friend of mine saw this post about buffing masks and was kind of doubtful as to whether or not the process would really work on a razor with a real design.

"Sure, you can see results on the metal,", he said, "...but what will happen to any goldwash under that mask? Will the super glue and acetone affect the gold layer?"

I considered his words and thought that he might have a point. And putting my money where my mouth is, I've done yet another test using this process.

This time, I poked through my drawer of Waiting-for-TLC razors and pulled out this old "Perrex" (No, I have no idea of age, date or manufacture on this one.).

Besides needing a right good session on the sharpening stones, the blade had a good bit of discoloration and light etching from soapy water damage or worse.

For this masking procedure I decided to use my flatbed scanner. The first image of the scanned blade shows the discolorations on the blade. It looked even worse when seen from a human-eye vantage point.

Anyway, I 'Placed' that image as a background in the Adobe Illustrator and then used the pen tool to trace a mask around the outside of what I wanted to keep. [Note: This same work can be done in other vector programs like Coral Draw or Inkscape]. The second image shows my mask work in progress.

Next I printed out my mask work onto a sheet of heavy inkjet paper (not glossy!).

Finally, I grabbed my oh-so-sharp hobby knife and cut out one of the printed masks. That last image shows the mask waiting to be pierced with holes and then to be glued onto the blade of the razor. [Hint: Feel free to wear magnifying glasses for this operation.]