Thread: So, how long do you take??

About what are your estimate time ranges for restoration?
Polishing blades and making scales, etc....

That is, hour wise? About 10-12 hours total, days?

C utz

Really, it depends on the condition of the blade, scales, etc., your skill level, and the equipment you have to work with.

Yeah, there are quite a few factors, but, in general, I'd have to say 1 hour to satin finish a blade in already decent condition, 4-5 times as long for a high polish or mirror finish.

An hour or two to cut (by hand saw) and sand to shape some simple one piece no frills scales. The finish on the scales probably takes the longest, just because of the waiting time between coats. For CA, I'd say I can squeeze in 5 coats/day, but I don't use any special accelerating agents to cure the CA faster. If it's tung oil, at least a week as I'll have a full day of drying time between coats.

Finally, anywhere from 30mins to 2 hours to drills the holes, place and peen the pins, fit the wedge, and various other finishing tasks.

Usually I'm really only doing bits and pieces at a time over several days. I haven't as of yet gone through the entire process in on complete sitting. Ohh, btw, the only powertool I've been using thus far is a dremel.

Depends on how much money you've got

Gary

bg42 is putting on a new set of scales for me on a w&b I got from ebay. I spent about 5 hours trying to get a mirror finish on it but couldn't get it perfect. I kept going from wanting a satin finish, but not being able to get it uniform enough without the flap wheel for the dremel and so giving up and polishing up with maas to an almost mirror finish. There was just some pitting I couldn't get off!!!

Yet here's a spot! What, will this razor ne'er be clean? Out, damned spot! out, I say! Yet who would have thought the old razor to have had so much rust and crap in it.
What's done cannot be undone.
To bed, to bed!

To remove the pitting with hand sanding from the blade it is about 6 to 8 hours for 6/8 or smaller blades. 8/8 takes about 10 hours. To date hand sanding is the only thing I know that gives excellent results with minimal risk to the blade.

If there is no pitting to remove then the refresh of the finish is a couple of hours.

Coming up with the shape, shaping and sanding the scales takes about two hours. CA finish takes another two to three for about 12 to 20 coats.

Brass wedge and pinning can take another hour.

Latest scales took longer. A couple of hours to do the brass etch artwork and prepare the negatives. An hour to etch the brass.

Add another hour for gluing the brass to the scales, sanding and polishing it.

Flap wheels are the best way to clean surface rust/shallow pitting with excellent results, no risk and no pitting, but they only go up to satin. For mirror, you'll have to to with Jason's drums or hand-sanding.

Ilija,

I got me flap wheels: 120, and today received the other two grits from widgetsupply - thanks to your tip. How long can you use a flap wheel? Say, 3-5 razors? I got two of each

Also, how do you go to mirror from flap 400? (I mean, got it - by hand, but what grit sandpaper?) I have a bunch of ole dogs I need to work on... in order to make them into beauties

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

Flap wheels are the best way to clean surface rust/shallow pitting with excellent results, no risk and no pitting, but they only go up to satin. For mirror, you'll have to to with Jason's drums or hand-sanding.

Actually, you can easily do 5 and probably as many as 9 per flap wheel. As for mirror, you can also use the dremel by making sanding drums Jason-style. He would be the better one to give you the rundown of the process, but you would have to go 600, 1000, 2000 and polish if you wanna do mirror.

question on the flap wheels.

i got some and they work fantastic.. but i recently did a pretty junk razor, by that i mean it had lots of gunk/tarnish... you know the stuff that makes the standpaper in the flap wheels look black and full. however you can see that the flap wheels have alot more to them inside. how do you take advantage of the inner (new) sandpaper on the flap wheels? how do you remove the outter gunked up edge? i feel like im wasting way too much of my flap wheel but i can't use it with all this gunk build up on the outter edge.


thanks,
~J