Thread: Project F.A. Clauberg Tonsorial Gem Gentleman's Set

I have a F.A. Clauberg Tonsorial Gem that was my first razor, and it's always been at the top of my rotation.

I picked up a second one on ebay today.
F.A. Clauberg Made in Germany Straight Razor Great Condition Vintage ecb | eBay

I'll need to clean and polish the new one up a bit. Intend to rescale them both in spalted sugar maple. I'm in the process of stabilizing the blanks now.


I intend to follow the advice here: http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...pic-heavy.html on making the matching scales.

I shouldn't have too much of a problem with the scales, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do for a box for the razors. I'm not so great at making boxes, especially fancy ones.

I received the eBay blade. I was suprised to find the razor in rather serviceable bone scales. I cleaned those up with some Oxyclean for another project and cleaned the blade up with a 300, 800, 1000, 2000, polishing compound progression. I left a little pitting on both blades, as these are 4/8 or 11/16 (small) singing full hollow grinds and there isn't a ton of material to work with. The remaining pitting, though close to the edge on one blade, is rather shallow. I think it should be OK.

The scales are about as impregnated with polyurethane as I'm going to get them without a vacuum chamber, and dry, so it's time to rough out the scales:



And glued together with rubber cement for contouring:

The scales were separated into pairs and thinned out, then separated. I'm encouraged to find that they smelled strongly of polyurethane as I sanded them, so I hope the polyurethane soak permeated them pretty thoroughly.



Numbered. 1 and 3 are front side scales, 2 and 4 are back side scales. Obviously, the side with the number written on them is the inside.



I found a use for the bone scales: my old Louper. The spine was always too pretty to be in the plain black plastic it came with. I cleaned up a couple of watermarks while I was at it.

It sure looks like you've been having fun! I'm quite new at this latest addiction of straight razor shaving that I find myself involved with. Made many noob mistakes, but then bought a restored F.A. Clauberg Tonsorial Gem. I'm still learning, and I use that razor as a benchmark to compare other razors to. I'm sure there are many razors that are better, but I really like this one. I'm kinda envious of the one you got off Ebay, can't wait to see the finished product. Take care, donv

Well, it's time to come clean on this one. Spalted maple is a real pain to deal with if one can't stabilize it properly, and mine broke repeatedly. I've since begun packing up the shop for an upcoming move. I ended up pinning the Claubergs in smoke and white acrylic scales that I bought from a source online, since I can't really fabricate scales right now. They look pretty cool (kinda like piano keys when viewed from the front), but aren't in the same league as what I had planned. Hopefully I'll get the full workshop going again sometime soon. Pics to come.

Thanks for the update! I actually bought a new razor from SRD a few weeks back, Boker Edelweiss, but ya know what, when I tried it out on it's first shave, I still ended up grabbing the ole Clauberg to do my chin. I know it's true you never forget your first gal, maybe the same goes with razors? Good luck with the move, donv

Love the scales, esp the really mottled ones...