Thread: Polish or grind?

I have this old H.Boker, It's my first straight razor. I got it for 50 bucks, it's seen its share of honing but it still shaves very well. There are some water stains and what looks like maybe a little rust... Is there a way to get all of that stuff off of there without taking it to a buffer? Is there a polish or something that will take it off? I also want to re pin it too, it doesn't sit in the scales very tight. The wedge seems like it's too thin. I would like to put "0 wides" in between the tang and the scales. Whoever had this, etched 1927 into the scales on one side. Maybe a really fine grit sand paper could take it out? Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated...

For the blade I'd use some #0000 steel wool with the metal polish of your choice. Make sure to always keep plenty of metal polish on the blade when using the steel wool. As far as the shales go, you should be able to just lightly wet sand them with high grit wet/dry sand paper.

You aren't going to get heavy rust or devil's spit off with a rag and polish. You could try handsanding, but I would start with just polishing off the patina and analyze what is needed from there.
No matter what you do you will have to rehone once done.
You don't have to repin to tighten the scales, search for threads on how to tighten pins.
By how it sits in the scales I wouldn't say that the wedge is too narrow, many of the older wedges were very narrow.
To fix the scales you would have to sand the area down and repeat with progressively finer grits, then polish with maas, mother's or the like.

Ditto to the advice above, ... I'd start with maas on a cloth and see how happy you are with it then. good luck

Originally Posted by JeffC79

I have this old H.Boker, It's my first straight razor. I got it for 50 bucks, it's seen its share of honing but it still shaves very well. There are some water stains and what looks like maybe a little rust... Is there a way to get all of that stuff off of there without taking it to a buffer? Is there a polish or something that will take it off? I also want to re pin it too, it doesn't sit in the scales very tight. The wedge seems like it's too thin. I would like to put "0 wides" in between the tang and the scales. Whoever had this, etched 1927 into the scales on one side. Maybe a really fine grit sand paper could take it out? Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated...

Boy, you asked a lot here. Go with the advice above for cleaning up the blade. There is no need to re-pin, just tighten the pins unless you want to get to the entire blade for cleaning. The 0 wides may be a bit thick to add between the scales & blade...I use brass sheeting or flatten out the washers by hammer on the anvil before using them. I would recommend leaving the wedge alone as from the pics provided I would say that the wedge is about right. If you make the wedge too wide, the blade can protrude out the bottom of the scales.

Originally Posted by Del1r1um

Ditto to the advice above, ... I'd start with maas on a cloth and see how happy you are with it then. good luck

+1
You can always proceed to some greaselees or w/d sandpaper if you are not sattisfied with results.