Making and Using Paper Buffing Masks

In a recent thread here on SRP http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...-not-buff.html, user ShavedZombie was wondering if there was any way to buff out a blade to a bright polish while retaining some etched lettering which had been part of the original design of the razor. (see original image from that post below)

Upon thinking about this question, I had hit upon the idea of using a glued-on paper buffing mask to protect some etched areas of a razor blade.

In the write-up I made of that suggestion, I had admitted that this technique was only a theory. But almost immediately after posting that reply I began to think more strongly on the matter and finally decided that I needed to test out my theory, not only for my own satisfaction but also for the general good of the SRP community. To that end, I present the following report.

Let me restate the question once again:

“How can one buff a blade to a bright polish without destroying design work which is already in place on the blade?”.

My answer was that what wants to do is to create a buffing mask to protect the lettering.

The following presents one possible way of creating this buffing mask.

Take a thin sheet of tracing paper, tape it in position on the blade and using a thin, sharp pencil trace the outlines of the existing lettering. Another technique might be to put the blade down on a flatbed scanner and scan in a picture of the side of the blade.

In either case, arbitrarily add a bit of space around the lettering on your tracing. (see the attached image of the linework below for example).

Now transfer the outline from the tracing paper onto some slightly thicker paper. You may choose to do this by hand, or else using a scanner and computer, scan in the tracing and print it back out onto another (thicker) sheet of paper. For those who are curious, the thickness of paper I used in my test was about 0.025 mm thick. But I do not think the thickness of the paper is of critical importance in this operation.

Now use either extremely fine scissors or a hobby knife, cut out the form, being sure to follow the enlarged outline. Neatness counts here, since this paper cutout is going to be your buffing mask. I would actually suggest that you cut a number of identical masks if you have the time and patience, since you might need them.

Now comes yet another tricky bit:

Take the razor blade (hopefully removed from the scales) and clean it carefully with some acetone to remove all traces of skin oil and grunge around the lettering.

When the blade is dry, place your paper mask in position over the existing lettering and carefully apply super glue to it. The idea is to saturate the paper thoroughly so that it simultaneously holds to the razor blade and becomes very hard.

A few hints are in order here:

You have to saturate all of the paper, but do make sure you don't use so much super glue that it starts running all over the rest of the blade. It will help to use a thin applicator tip for this purpose so that you can direct the super glue exactly where you want it, letting it flow in between paper and mask without having it bead up at the edges to form round droplets.

It helps to pierce the mask in a few places with a sewing needle in order to make holes for the super glue to more easily penetrate into the space between the paper mask and the blade. I did this using a wine cork to back up the paper so that the piercing operation did not distort the mask. I suggest you pierce the paper from the underside towards the top in order that the paper which is pushed aside by the needle is on the upper side of the paper mask and does not interfere with the contact of mask and blade.

Don't use your fingers to hold the paper mask in place. Not only are fingers kind of large and clumsy for this purpose, but you may end up stuck to your work. Try using toothpicks or else the points of some fine tweezers to hold the mask in place while it sets.

The super glue will not set up right away on its own in this situation, so you will have to be patient and be willing to hold the mask down in place for a few minutes. You can speed it up by either (a) using a commercial spray-on accelerator such as "Zip-Kicker ", or else (b) by sprinkling on a little bit of ordinary baking powder. Breathing on the glued up area also helps, since super glue sets up more quickly with increased humidity.

Make absolutely certain that there are no 'voids' between your paper mask and the blade (areas without glue). The buffing wheel would 'erase' these in seconds.

Once the glue has hardened, you should (in theory) be able to buff the blade while the mask protects the lettering.

Naturally, you will want to keep your eye on the progress of the buffing. Use light pressure in this area. If there is any sign that the mask is being buffed away or is loosening, then you will have stop the buffing process, clean the blade and reapply a fresh mask.

Once you have finished buffing, the mask can easily be removed with acetone (which dissolves super glue).

Naturally, one will end up with a buffed blade having a slightly duller area just surrounding the lettering. This to me seems preferable to losing the lettering to the action of the buffing wheel.

So, how did it work in practice?

To be honest, this whole procedure worked out much better than I anticipated.

Since I did not currently have a test blade with any designs on it, I simply cut out an arbitrary paper shape to serve as my buffing mask. I pierced the design with a sewing needle and then glued it down onto the blade.

The mask went on fairly easily. I also realized that once the super glue had hardened I could go around it with the point of a hobby knife and carefully scrape back any areas where the glue (or bits of paper) had accidentally squeezed out a bit too far from the mask.

I was a bit worried about how the mask would hold up against a buffing wheel. I thought that the paper might have been too weak and fragile for this sort of thing. I needn't have been so concerned. The super glue had appropriately seeped into the fibers of the paper, turning it into one, hard plastic-like mass.

I started out the buffing with a fairly rough paste on a sisal wheel and then moved on to a white stainless compound on a soft cotton buff. (Do note that I did not go much further with this test as I am planning to refinish this blade at some point and further buffing work with this test mask in place would have been pointless.) I buffed in various directions and angles on the blade and I even tried bearing down a bit more than I thought I should have in order to test the amount of protection. I experienced no problems whatsoever. I still advise caution. Go slowly and inspect your work. This is very important, most especially if you are going to start out with even coarser buffing pastes.

When it came time to remove the mask, I found out just how strongly the paper was adhering to the blade. Even holding a paper tissue soaked in acetone to the mask for a minute or two failed to loosen the paper mask very much. I had to resort to rubbing and scraping the acetone-softened paper with my fingernails in order to finally abrade and loosen the glue-and-paper combination. I think that soaking the blade in acetone for about ten minutes before trying to remove the mask might be more effective (!).

The final three images of the blade show the paper buffing mask and the results of the buffing following removal of that same buffing mask.

I think you will agree that this represents another technique which we as straight razor restorers can employ to protect design work, lettering and/or goldwash work when we restore beautiful old blades. :)


Good Luck,

- Ignatz

Thats a cool idea. Seems like a lot of work but I have restored a few blades hand sanding around etchings and that is a real PITA. Good idea and thaks for taking the time to do the experiment and share your results.
Grant

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. :confused: 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.]

The next stage was to pierce the mask with some small holes with a sewing needle and then glue it down onto the razor with super glue.

I experienced no trouble at all with the glue-up, but I see (from my results) that the mask moved ever so slightly during that process. :rant: (I have some thoughts for better line-up procedures, but I have yet to work those out to my satisfaction.)

The next stage was to take the masked razor to the buffer. This time I gave it the Full Monty. I went through five grades of buffing compound (coarse to fine).

After the second buffing I thought I saw some little pinholes developing in the mask. I'm not certain if this was actually so, but I stopped, cleaned the mask (with some benzine) and then glued on some tiny snippets of paper with more super glue to be absolutely sure. Then it was back to the buffing wheels for the final three grades of compound.

I was absolutely right about how difficult it would be to get the dried mask-and-glue combination off of the blade. But this time I played it a little smarter. I layered some slices of paper towel on top of the mask, saturated them in acetone and wrapped the blade and soaked paper towel in a sheet of aluminum foil to prevent evaporation. After about ten minutes I unwrapped the blade to find the mask much looser and more pliable than it had been. This definitely helped get it off faster. In truth, fifteen minutes would have been even better for this 'soaking' time.

The last two images are of the final results. The first is from the flatbed scanner again for comparison to the original scan. The other is just a snapshot of the final buffed-out razor on my drawing table.

As I mentioned, the positioning could have been better, but the mask definitely did do its work. :) I was able to successfully buff out the blade without losing the design work. It can also be seen that the gold work did not suffer in the least from the super glue or the removal of the mask with the acetone.

I trust this proves useful to you all.

- Ignatz

Here are some other little important bits of information in connection with using these paper buffing masks.

A) First the question of applying super glue to bond the mask to the blade. You will remember that I suggested using a needle to pierce holes in the mask to allow the super glue to more easily saturate the paper and flow between mask and blade. What I did not remember to say was that because of these little holes it is not necessary to first apply super glue to the back of the paper mask. One can simply place the mask in position and then apply the glue to the front side of the paper mask. The super glue will flow through the holes and effect a bond anyway.

B) The second bit of information is that in addition to being able to scrape back unwanted glue which has seeped out of the mask, it is also possible to carefully cut away little scraps of the paper mask should you find it necessary. Naturally, you will want do this after the super glue has set up, but do not wait too long as the stuff gets a bit harder over time. For this I use a small hobby knife with those break-off, disposable blades (the type one snaps off to reveal a fresh point). If you use a deft hand and do not apply too much pressure you will be pleased to find that these hobby knives are sharp enough and pointy enough to cut through the paper of the mask without scratching the metal of the straight razor... or at least that has been my experience. In this I am trusting that the hardness of the cheap hobby knife blade is lower than the hardness of the steel in the straight razor. But do be careful about this. Especially on older razors this may not be the case. When in doubt, test your knife against the straight razor blade steel in some discrete location where a scratch won't matter (along the side of the tang next to the pivot hole, for instance).

C) Last of all, I forgot to point out that the super glue bonded mask appears to be unaffected by the heat which is generated during the buffing process. That is to say that I didn't detect any softening or loosening of the mask even when the blade had become rather warm from the friction of the buffing wheel. I am assuming that this secure bond will still hold at any reasonable levels of heat. I am also guessing that any level of heat that affects the bond will probably already have spoiled the temper of the blade. But try to keep that heat down in any case. ;)

- Ignatz