Thread: First Time

OK so being extra proud of my first restoration, Like many of you were in the beginning I assume, I wanted to post my wonderful (while still totally ugly) first restoration. I would love any advice, I know I need a lot, and would love to see any veterans first creations if you still have pics of them. the only tools I have in my small NYC apartment are a dremel with very basic fittings and a hand saw and sand paper. the wood I used was blood wood and because it was thick I trimmed down the center to create the wedge. Again this is the first everything for me so please brutal honesty and tricks would be greatly loved... along with any picks of y'alls first attempts.

I hope the pics show up now

Brutal honesty> Looks pretty darn good for a first try with minimal tools. Check my previous posts, I use minimal tools also.
Improvement recommendations? I would have sanded down the wood to a thickness desired, rather than carve out the wedge from it, would have been cleaner look. I used heavy grit sand paper taped to a piece of wood about the size of a ruler. Goes pretty quickly. I worked a Buffalo Horn from 1/4" to 1/8" last night, shaped and polished in about 2 hours.
Can't really see the blade too well from the pics, but the spine looks a little scratchy. I hand sand my blades. I have grits from 100 (hardly ever used on metal) all the way to 2000 grit. Then I use Mother's Metal polish. The only thing I do that you might not be able to is buffing with a paste, but dremel does make some small felt wheels. Just be real careful not to catch the edge of the blade.
Good luck. My restoration pics are in my past posts. I have made tons of improvement from my first and second scales, even though I have only made about 6 sets so far.

Not too shabby at all for your first. You should be proud

Hey George,

You want honesty?

In all honety I can't tell a thing from your after pics above. I mean no offense, but really, I can't make out anything. The before pics (to me) show more detail.

So, I can't say about your restoration attempts, but on your photo attempts--to me anyway--not very good.

Sorry, just trying to keep it honest with what I see, and that's not much from these pics.

Please take some new photos and repost, as whatever your restoration efforts are, they just don't come through in these photos.

Understand, I'm NOT criticizing the resotoration! It's just I can's see what you've done to say, "Wow!" or, "Dude, you need to learn how to polish" (or whatever).

Please, I don't mean any offense. I just can't see what it is you've done in the photos.

Kent

Congrats George, on your first restore - good going. I like the shape of your scales, they are nice.
I also like the wedge idea, it is new and fresh, although technically that is more of a spacer than a
wedge (there is a reason for the wedge shape), and I also suspect it would have been faster to use
a regular wedge. Your pins look ok, at least the one that is clearly visible. I do notice the wobbly
pattern on the spine, and I suspect on the face of the blade as well, that the dremel so often makes.
You can counter this with some hand sanding with fine grit sandpaper or perhaps steel wool after you
are done with the dremel.

Remember that a restore basically is to take an unuseable razor and make it so it is again useable.
Looks to me that you achieved that, and had some fun as well. There's lots of neat tricks along
the way that will improve the looks, many can be found in the SRP wiki.
And remember, your next one will be even better

Originally Posted by klsmsn

Hey George,

You want honesty?

In all honety I can't tell a thing from your after pics above. I mean no offense, but really, I can't make out anything. The before pics (to me) show more detail.

So, I can't say about your restoration attempts, but on your photo attempts--to me anyway--not very good.

Sorry, just trying to keep it honest with what I see, and that's not much from these pics.

Please take some new photos and repost, as whatever your restoration efforts are, they just don't come through in these photos.

Understand, I'm NOT criticizing the resotoration! It's just I can's see what you've done to say, "Wow!" or, "Dude, you need to learn how to polish" (or whatever).

Please, I don't mean any offense. I just can't see what it is you've done in the photos.

Kent

Here are some mew pics I hope this helps, I only have the camera on my phone. The razor had some bad pitting so I tried to remove as much as I could. I also tried to tighten the pins to much and cracked the wood .

ok SRP readers if I was to get one tool what should it be?

I can never get this to work!!

The way you made the scales was often done by people carving their own scales for their razors. The method works. Like anything else, the quality of any project improves with experience and the expense of the tools!!!

The "flow" of the scales is not quite smooth near the middle, but oh well. The washers commonly purchased from places like Micro Mark come in two sizes. Your pinning might have looked better with the smaller size. The cleaning of the blade is what it is--you can't always remove all the pitting from every razor no matter what tool you have or use. As long as you've removed active rust, sometimes that all you can do.

In a nutshell, it really doesn't matter how well this one went. The fact that you did one is all that matters. You learned from it and the next one will go better!

Overall, it's a great start!!!

If you want the finish on the blade to be improved, you could always send it to me for buffing. How do you feel about tracking and insurance?

Originally Posted by Utopian

The way you made the scales was often done by people carving their own scales for their razors. The method works. Like anything else, the quality of any project improves with experience and the expense of the tools!!!

The "flow" of the scales is not quite smooth near the middle, but oh well. The washers commonly purchased from places like Micro Mark come in two sizes. Your pinning might have looked better with the smaller size. The cleaning of the blade is what it is--you can't always remove all the pitting from every razor no matter what tool you have or use. As long as you've removed active rust, sometimes that all you can do.

In a nutshell, it really doesn't matter how well this one went. The fact that you did one is all that matters. You learned from it and the next one will go better!

Overall, it's a great start!!!

If you want the finish on the blade to be improved, you could always send it to me for buffing. How do you feel about tracking and insurance?

oh no Ron, tell me you haven't lost faith in our postal service???