Thread: 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