Thread: Been sanding...

Gentlemen,

I have an old straight (from my wife's grandpa) that I am restoring. I want to get it in mint-condition if possible, and shave with it!

Before (razor has been stored in it's box for many, many years):



Been sanding for a while now (taking it easy, no deadline on this project). Started at 150 grit, than 180 and just finished the 240 grit:





It's heading into the right direction imho, the corrosion wipes off quite easy. Nevertheless, because this straight has been in the family for a long time, I am considering one of the specialists on SRP to continue this restore-job. Rescaling, pinning, honing and such is not my cup of tea (yet). It feels better to practice and get the hang of it on an e-bay find than on this one. Nevertheless it's great to shine up an old piece of steel using some elbow-grease!

Before you spend the $ on it, it should be evaluated if the rust ate the edge up. I can see a bit of pitting at the edge, the worst place. Only way to evaluate it would be to take the blade to the stones and establish a bevel and then look at it under magnification. If there is good steel there, then you may consider restoration. If there isn't, I'd just keep it as it is IMO.

I have to agree with Shooter this spot looks rather deep...

Put it on a low grit stone and see what you have before Restoration, it saves a ton of time...

It looks cracked to me.

The few times I've done hand sanding I learned not to skip grits. You skipped 220, and I see scratches from the heavier grits still.

It could be that you left 180 before getting all the 150 scratches out. If so then you're in a pickle. I was there before on a junker I practiced on, and I ended up having to go back, but that was fruitless because I realized I was sanding so much in the end that there was no way the spine would be even when I'd go to hone it. I learned to be very careful up towards the spine.

The pros seem to think you're in worse trouble than I'm bringing up with your edge damage, so maybe you don't have to worry too much about those lines. If you do decide though to just have it as a display piece then no harm going back and trying to get rid of them I say!

You did a great job at not wiping away the nice stamp.

Originally Posted by TrilliumLT

It looks cracked to me.

Actually, I have to agree that there could be a crack there. Didn't notice it before, but looks like it may run up about 1/8" from the edge in the heavily pitted area. Please inspect that area closely and if there is a crack, there would be no need to go any further. Hate to give bad news, but I hope you would rather the truth than the alternative.

IMHO, if there was a crack he would certainly have noticed it when sanding. It would have "popped" out.
I just worked on a blade with a far worse edge today. Just hone off, not sand off, the old, oxidized, weak steel along the edge. You will be fine.

Just my $.02,

Gentlemen, thanks a lot for your comments/advice!

I am trying to find an expert who can tell me if restoring is a "go" or a "no go". I do not see any cracks, even when looking through a magnifying-glass. But on the other hand, I don't have the hands-on experience to tell if it can be done or not. A bit of an open end, but I will post any news/progress (if any) on this one.

There is another gentleman on the forum from the Netherlands on here, you may pay attention to the locations of other posters and see if by chance he lives close to you. He's been at straights a bit longer than you...would be nice for you two to meet up.

I don't know about cracks, but I've got an advise for you, Stainless, if you want to continue sanding/polishing the blade.

You may know this trick. Anyway, someone might learn something new.
Make some kind of round vice, where you can hold your polishing paper. I've heard that nylon is superb, but I didn't have any. I used an irod bar and a piece of leather to make the "contact"-part more "applying" the pressure.
The outer diameter of the ring-thingy should be the same as the grind on the blade.
Rub back and forth until you are satisfied with the result.
Take a piece of higher grit and continue until all scratches from the previous grit are gone.

finally, take the highest grit you have (I used 1200) and start from where the sharp part starts. I don't know the name of that part.
sand in a smoth, floating movement, only once, do again with an unused part of the sanding paper. This is giving you a very nice hand-grit surface. Easy to keep, easy to polish if you want.

The examples is from a Scandi blade, but you get the idea.

Sorry for my bad english.

Best regards,
Kristian


Ps. the paper is probably grit 280