Blade Restoration

Well I got a set of razors yesterday, and long story short I decided I would start doing a complete restore to one of the razors that had a crack in the scales. Its my first time ever restoring a rezor so im pretty new at this, Ive looked at the wiki link and I started out with a 220 grit M3 sand paper that I had in my garage, I'm an hour into sanding and it looks a world better than it did, but there is still marks that wont seem to come out with the 220, should I just use more elbow grease and do a bit longer with the 220, or move to an 80 or a 100, or just go down in coarseness to a 400?

Don't use too much elbow grease or you'll create scratches . Just let the paper do the work. If you don't like what you see & the blade is thick enough to tolerate a coarser grit you can drop down but an hour isn't a long time in the world of handsanding :)

Regarding the sandpaper, is it the wet/dry variety? That's what you'll want to use for razors. Also, if you add a drop of light weight oil, like 3 in 1 oil, you will make faster progress.

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Originally Posted by Utopian

Regarding the sandpaper, is it the wet/dry variety? That's what you'll want to use for razors. Also, if you add a drop of light weight oil, like 3 in 1 oil, you will make faster progress.

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And Smoother !!! using the oil does both, and the harder you press the deeper the scratches the deeper the scratches the longer to polish them out :)

On another point, the smaller the jump in grit the easier it is to get rid of scratches. I wouldnt go from 220 to 400 if you can get something in between. I have 240, 280, 320 and 360. It might sound like more work but it really isnt IMO.
Grant

Wrap the sandpaper around an old cork.

Can I take away pitting with 220? It seems like its not going away very fast, I just dont want to scratch the blade to much.

It's unclear if you're using the abrasive by hand or mounted to a dowel/form.
I would suggest using a series of dowels, cut to about 1 1/2 -2" length and adhered w/emery/abrasive papers. I find that hardware store sandpapers are unusable. Try searching out a jewellery supply house for some emery papers.
I feel that using hand finishing techniques with the least amount of use from a polishing aide keeps all edges/shapes crisp. You'll see a lot of nicely polished pieces out there but they're lacking the "crispness" of a hand worked/loved finish.
It just takes a bit of time.