W&B Project

Hi folks, new to the forum, I've never shaved with a straight razor, but I intend to one day soon. I found this razor at an antique store for $80, and I was a bit shocked at how good it looked for the price, especially considering its age. I will be cruising the forums, learning about restoring razors, and I hope to fix this one up. Looks like buffalo horn scales. So here's a question: I have some beautiful Brazilian rosewood burl a luthier friend gave me; do you think I should make some burl scales for it? I still intend to fix up the current scales too, I'm just not sure if I should keep it all original or go all out with the exotic scales. At any rate here are some pictures I took with my phone, I'll take more pictures and upload them once i get into the restoration process. There is very little significant pitting in the blade. I'm not sure what the ring shaped stain on the back side is, I can't feel it with my finger so I'm hoping it will polish out. The only deep pitting I can feel is near the tip on the back of the blade, you can barely see it in the close up. Any tips, suggestions, comments, so on and so forth? Thanks!
Attachment 82272Attachment 82273Attachment 82274Attachment 82275Attachment 82276Attachment 82277Attachment 82278Attachment 82279Attachment 82280

Nice str8. If it was me i would make sure it was rust free. Polish it up hone it and start to shave. All the stains and scratches gives it character. I have noticed on mine when you clean it after shaving with toilet paper you are also polishing it. They have started to shine more with each use.

Jeff

For the love of god leave it alone! Get it honed and shave with it :)

Sent from my ViewPad7 using Tapatalk

I agree, if the scales aren't cracked through the pivot etc. then leave them be. You be surprised how nice the blade and scales will look after an hour or so of polishing by hand. You may even destroy them if you unpin them.

Imo save the burl for a razor that really needs new scales. (trust me you'll end up with plenty if you get this honed professionally and get hooked on the SR)

Enjoy!

For the love of God man, don't pull the scaled off that razor! Soak them for 24-60 hrs in neetsfoot oil and then wet sand them using neetsfoot oil and wet/dry sand paper from 400-8000/higher if you can get it. Finish with carnuba or ren wax. You won't be sorry!
If you want to polish the blade, I use Mother's brand chrome and aluminum polish. It works well. Lots of guys use Mass or Flitz or similar. You can use them on the pins/washers too.

Of course, you could just send it out to get honed an use it as is. It's your party, do whatever males you happy. Decent straights are neither rare or super expensive. Have fun!

No rust evident on the blade, I agree about the character, I'm not one that wants to take an antique and make it look like it just came from the manufacturer. When I say "restore" in this case, I just want to get it to shaving condition. No cracks in the scales, just a few pits and hollows. After really examining the razor the first day I had it home I've come to agree the scales are in much better shape than I originally thought. I'll be polishing them up following medicevans suggestions. Would lemon oil work as well as neetsfoot? I work on guitars from time to time and we use lemon oil to treat the fretboards. As far as the blade goes, I have a felt wheel and I was thinking of picking up some jewelers rouge, or do you think the wheel would be too aggressive? Maybe start off by hand and then if there are any really stubborn spots take it to the wheel? As far as the deeper pits in the blade on the back side, I was considering starting with a rougher rouge compound on the wheel, and working up to the jewelers rouge. Again, I've never restored anything like this, I don't know if I should just stick to hand polishing, or if a few seconds on the wheel would shine it up perfectly? As far as honing, I know a gentleman that has been honing blades for longer than I've been alive, I think I'll take it to him. I would definitely like to pick up a good hone and start learning the art myself. Again, any suggestions, tips, comments? Thanks for the input! Oh, can anyone from the pictures tell me about how old this blade is? The best I could come up with was a final date of manufacture of the "for barber's use" razors: around 1900, meaning this blade is at least 110 years old! I doubt time treats me as well...

First off i'd like to say congrats on such a beautiful razor and I completely agree with keeping things original. When it comes to restoration of the blade, I wouldn't use any power tools at all. Being your first restoration, doing things by hand will give you a better feel for how far to go. My suggestion is to progressively work from #0 to #0000 steel wool using either 3 in 1 oil or a metal polish such as Maas or Turtle Wax polishing compound. For the scales, I'm not sure that lemon oil would work or not. Neetsfoot oil is recommended as it is rendered from the hooves and horns of cows making it pretty much the same as the scales. As far as age, it is pre-1891 as it doesn't include country of origin on the tang, only the Sheffield mark. Enjoy.

As has been said, use neetsfoot oil not lemon oil. Neetsfoot oil puts into the horn what it needs. You don't need much, just enough to cover the scales. Open the blade so it can get inside the scales too. Attached are pictures of what neetsfoot oil looks like before and after. I'm not tooting my own horn, it just isn't that hard of a process. The pictures are of y first time using N.O. on scales. Also the blade was hand sanded to 12,000 then Mother's.
Before:
http://img.tapatalk.com/ad1867a9-946d-6595.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/ad1867a9-9484-20ce.jpg
After:

http://img.tapatalk.com/ad1867a9-949f-757c.jpg
You don't need power tools.

Please don't use power tools for your first restore, especially one so beautiful as this. Learn it by hand first. Grab a crappy eBay blade or email Larry at Whippeddog straights and ask to buy some practice blades.

You'd be amazed at how shiny Mas or Mothers can make a blade. Seriously, they work great.

Thanks! I'll see about picking up some good steel wool and polish then. Very cool to think that razor has been around for over 120 years. I haven't been able to track down the gentleman who'se case it was in, but he does have other razors in there, and trust me I'll be going back for more. I think there is one with cracked scales that might give me the occasion to use that burl. As long as I like the blade enough... That piece of wood is special, and I was lucky to get it, there were a lot of guys with their eyes on it.

Oh I see, that makes sense. I looked up what neetsfoot was made of. I think I know a local place I can get some. What did you use to sand the blade? Just a fine sand paper? I guess then the polish buffs out the remaining little scratches from the sanding, that razor looks great. I'll refrain from using the shiny new grinder, I trust your "senior member" advice! :) I'll be looking for that polish too. I'm on the search for the perfect blade in need of some fancy scales now, keep a sharp eye, if you folks see one you think would pair nicely with that brazillian rosewood burl, I'd sure appreciate it if you could point it out to me. I'm cruising the antique stores looking for deals...

Dude, I'm far from "senior member"! But yes, it was sanded up through the grits. I'd start high, you can always go to lower grits, but it's hard to sand out big scratches once you've made them. Start by soaking. It will really surprise you.

Hey guys, I gave this razor to a local straight razor barber at a client's barber shop for honing. When I got it back, it was as dull as a stick. Grr. I took it to a friend who just got a Japanese water stone and we tried to hone it, I first gave it 30 passes on the 1000 grit, then 60 on the 6000. Then 40 on the strop. Dull. My buddy gave it roughly the same treatment. Dull. I went 50/100/40. Slightly sharper. But I'm afraid the blade is curved somewhat, and it doesn't seem to be sharpening evenly. I think I'll send it off to be sharpened. Any suggestions or volunteers?

stop trying it yourself, don't give it to a barber. Look through the vendors section and fine one of the "honemeisters" who will do that excellent blade justice.

Cool, I'll search one out. In the mean time, anyone out there able to give me a quote or point me to someone you know does good work?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TwistedOak

stop trying it yourself, don't give it to a barber. Look through the vendors section and fine one of the "honemeisters" who will do that excellent blade justice.

---

+100. Please stop. This isn't meant to be harsh, but rather truthful. You don't know what you're doing and experimenting aimlessly is not going to make anything better. I don't hone either, rather I send my blades to someone who doesn't have to experiment, and gets great, repeatable results every time.

Take a gander through the classifieds under Member Services. It will probably cost around $15-$25 and it will be right when you get it back.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mkbolivianwonder

Hey guys, I gave this razor to a local straight razor barber at a client's barber shop for honing. When I got it back, it was as dull as a stick. Grr. I took it to a friend who just got a Japanese water stone and we tried to hone it, I first gave it 30 passes on the 1000 grit, then 60 on the 6000. Then 40 on the strop. Dull. My buddy gave it roughly the same treatment. Dull. I went 50/100/40. Slightly sharper. But I'm afraid the blade is curved somewhat, and it doesn't seem to be sharpening evenly. I think I'll send it off to be sharpened. Any suggestions or volunteers?

---

It most likely needs much more work on the 1000 grit, until the job there is down doing higher grit is pointless. Since neither you, your friend, or the barber know what you're doing you should simply let somebody else who knows take care of it. If you want to learn how to restore the edge of razors in such condition you should prepare yourself with patience, and start by reading the honing section, as well as the various articles on honing in the library/wiki.

have fun

I've read a lot in the forums and studied about this, I'm aware that we may have needed to use a lower grit stone, its just that we only have the one stone... Im hoping to get my own set with several grits for christmas. But that's why I was asking around for referrals. I was a bit surprised the barber didn't know how to hone properly, he must use disposable straights or something, he told me he could hone it, so that was dissapointing. My friend and I have honed other straights before, to a very nice edge, but this one is different, either it was too dull as you say and needed a rougher stone, or it could be that the blade is warped or curved in a weird way. I don't have the experience to tell what exactly the problem was, hence the forum question. Thanks for the response

first nice score on the W&B

Second Honing is a B to learn. Its going to take lots of practice and some times you will will accidentally get it right. You need to get that one done by a pro. Buy a kick around razor off of Ebay or an antique mall that you dont care about and practice honing on it, having your other razor honed by a pro will help you determine the success of your edge. Use magic marker on the bevel to see how your strokes affect the edge. Most importantly ask questions and listen to the answers. You will feel like an idiot sometimes for your mistakes (trust me I make them daily) but you can always count on someone here to help you figure out a solution.

as for stones I have a king 800/4000 combo I use for setting new bevel's. Hasnt let me down yet and its a cheaper stone to learn on. Just keep it flat and soak it for 20 min. Oh and do yourself a favor and watch GSsixgun's channel on youtube to see what honing looks like when done properly. #$%#@# make's it look so simple :( lol

Well this is where the hard stuff comes, it's not that you can't do it, but it takes a lot of experience to learn how to set the bevel when the razor is challenging. Barbers generally haven't had to do this type of edge restoration, what they usually do is just maintenance. Of course some barbers can, but it's just not something that they're expected to do.
It's quite possible that the steel is bad and the razor is at the stage of being just a decoration too, or it may be just a matter of more work, the thing is that unless you have the experience you can't really tell, and there isn't a shortcut to getting there.

You should be able to get the razor with the hones you have (I know that almost anybody here would consider that edge after the 6k and stropping inferior, but if that's your current standard and you're happy with it, you can get any good razor there with the hones you have). 1000 grit is pretty good for doing bevel work. I've spent hours on some razors on the 1k level just because I wanted to be extra careful and slowly take away the bad steel and no more than that, while at the same time preserving the condition as close to what it was, so speeding the work with increasing the pressure was out of question (on flexible blades it's counterproductive and widens the bevel unnecessarily).

So, don't feel bad, but if you don't have anybody good locally to do it in person the next most useful thing would be to mail it to somebody that's really good and ask for their feedback on what was the problem and how they did it.
Otherwise the standard recipe would be stay on the 1k level until the bevel is properly set no matter how long that takes, but you don't really know what a properly set bevel is, or what problems may be preventing you to get there. Using sharpie marker and magnification you can detect double bevel and if your magnification is high quality you can also detect rotten or just poor quality steel, but that's the stuff that you should've already picked up from just reading the honing section, so I suspect it isn't a new info that'll help you.

References - as it was suggested, take a look at the classifieds in the member services section and you'll find a whole lot of people. Of course, they all have different level of experience, but any on the present list is more than good enough to fix your razor if it's fixable.

As above. 30 strokes on 1k on an old Sheffield is wishful thinking for a new bevel but on a +ve note the bevels look pretty true, just relying on the pics.
I doubt you have a warped blade but someone whose done a few could tell you for sure :)
As Gugi said steel quality can be a big ? on old razors but it will be evident to an experienced honer after a bit of hone time on it.

Thanks for the responses. Yeah I forgot to mention, we couldn't find a sharpie last last night but next time I can get over to my buddies house I was planning on taking one and doing the test. Even then, like you say, I wouldn't really know what todo with the result, but it would at least give me something to bring up here to possibly narrow things down. I did find someone in the forum who comes highly recommended, I've sent him a pm to ask for his help. I believe if it's fixable, he can fix it. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to acquire some more straights, and build the experience to help someone else who's just bought ther first. :) thanks again.

I believe Lynn received the straight yesterday, I'm looking forward to hearing back from him about the condition of the blade. Probably should have sent it to him as soon as I got it.. live and learn.

Funny how things have progressed on this forum. It seems keeping a razor original has become the latest recommendation.
Lots have been stripped away in the past and rescaled with all sorts of materials. Saving and keeping old ones is truly restoring. You will like the shave it provides and I also feel you will be glad you left it alone.
Nice Razor!

So I've been shaving with this razor now for several weeks. I really love it, Lynn did a great job with it, it shaves well and looks great. It is a pretty large razor, so it can be a bit tricky shaving under the nose and in the curve of the neck, but I'm getting the hang of it. I look forward to years of use out of it.