My pipe razor

Here is my pipe razor that I picked up just a minute ago.Attachment 96762Attachment 96763Attachment 96764

That razor should turn out nicely. What grit paper is that? Looks really low.

It's 80 grit actually

Interesting, just fixed up a pipe blade that is exactly the same. Should come up real nice. What do the original scales look like?

Bob

The scales where celluloid that were rotten and holy

I don't think I would use 80 grit cause it would take along time to get rid of the scratches "IMHO". 320 is usually what I will start with and on the rare occasion I would use 220.

I started with 80 on my first two razors as they had quite a bit of pitting. I didn't have much problem going up in grit from there. I just picked up a pipe razor last week for an upcoming project but it's going to take a bit of work to get it looking good.

I'm trying to get it to really shine I'm still having a difficult time in doing that

How far up in grits have you got? Did you make sure you removed all marks from the previous grit?

I have in sandpaper all the way up To 1500 and then I use Mirco mesh up to 20000 I think

Can you post a picture of how it looks now?

Attachment 96840 here is a pic before 320

What was your progression?

I've only done two so far so I'm far from an expert but just make sure you spend the time to get all the scratch marks from each grit before moving up or you'll spend the time doing it all over again.

I start from 80 grit depending on if I need it than 150,220,320,400,600,800,1000,1500, and I can't remember what my micro mesh grit lvl is but I believe is the highest is 20000grit

If you weren't starting to see yourself in the razor at 1000 you moved up too soon somewhere. At what point did you ad a wet agent and what did you use? I started wet at 400 and just used water with baking soda in it Because I was inside.

I had this after 2000 and Maas

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...r/a567549e.jpg

That's what I would like to have indeed and I never use wet anything its all dry

I would use water or WD40 works well, but that is with wet/dry sandpaper.

you can use windex too. But as to the original progression. It is usually safer to start at a medium grit, and if you are having a hard time remove as much material as you want, move down. If it works, then continue the progression up as you have already done.

going down to 80grit would also be much more harmful to full hollow grounds as compared to the grind on your pipe razor.

Y does it make it easier to get the sandpaper wet I was curious

80 grit is crazy rough. My 2 cents would be nothing below around 300 unless you making one with stock removal. While lower grits get work done faster, its much easier to remove more metal in another pass than to put metal back on.

something I found that works well for me, alternat your scratch patterns when you switch grits. It make is a ton easier to see when you have removed all the previous grits scratches. When you cant see prev scratches easily, use light to show you if there are any left behind. I have found that a grit is about halfway done when I cant see the scratches easily, the second half are stubborn hidden ones you need to use the reflection of light to see. Its no fun doing another pass on both sides over one little scratch (gotta work the metal even) but is worth it in the final finish.

If you grab some chopsticks from the local chinese place, they split really nicely & easily with the grain. They make nice little paper pushers to get into the corners and edges.

Excellent idea about the chop sticks and I didn't think about a light I bet a led would work perfectly

Yes I gauge all my sanding by reflecting light to see the scratch patterns. As far as the reason for a wet component it helps keep the paper cleaner by letting it release particles other than that someone else will have to chime in. All I know is it seems to help a lot.

Well that's seems to be a idea I need to try which is better water or wd40

I can't say which is better as I've only used water because I was doing it inside. WD-40 would be better to keep the new exposed steel from rusting when you put it down but I was advised just to put a little baking soda in the water. It seemed to work just fine.

Well I don't have any baking soda but I'll give it shot with 320 next and I'll post pics

Just make absolutely sure it's dry and put some sort of oil (mineral, baby same thing) on it when your done for the time or it will rust.

Indeed I'll get to it

Attachment 96870 here is 320

Here is 1000Attachment 96884

There you go looking good!

I'll tell you one other thing if you intend on continuing restoring razors make a jig (I'll see if I can find the link) to hold the blade. I did two and I hurt the tendon to my thumb on my left hand from constantly squeezing it to hold on. And now my thumb gets stuck in the bent position every morning when I wake up and I have to pop it back.

Bill's Straight Razor Info: Making the Blade Safety Jig

Here it is completely done I let the pipe dark cause it's hard as hell to make that think clean but it gives it contrast Attachment 96885Attachment 96886

I dont know if it might be camera angles/lighting playing tricks, but the second pic and the pic I was going to refer too was before 320. That 320 grit pic looked a lot more even though.

Those pics I just posted are the finished product