Thread: adventurous restoration

so my newest restoration attempt arrived from ebay on tuesday. not too bad, gunk and black crap wasn't overly terrible and the scales were 3pin in good condition for the most part. so out came the dremmel and off came the scales. took the blade to the homemade sanding dremel attachment from this board on some 400grit. not bad, always happy when you can start with 400 grit and get all the spots off..means much less sanding to get out those large groves from the 200ish paper.

so dremel does it part, i take it to the couch to do some hand sanding to even out the markings and get all the small things i might have missed. so its all going very well, holding the blade in the left hand i start to sand the top of the spine. pushing kind of hard yet evenly its looking great. get towards the tip of the blade still working the top spine and as i look up to watch whats happening on the American Music Awards. it went a little like this.....

hand slides forward sanding the top spine, hand continues a little too far. hand starts the backward motion pushing down as to keep pressure on my sanding..but instead of on top it slips to under the blade..... S L I C E

i jump up, grab my thumb and say "OH @#%$$#^" ...as the blood is pouring out of my hand all over the carpet and on the couch...run to the sink and take a look...yes there is still a thumb...somewhere under that 3inch flap and waterfall of blood...

in the back ground i hear "I KNEW IT!!! I KNEW YOU WOULD DO THIS WITH YOUR DAMN RAZORS"...the wife's lovely voice trumpets like an angel singing....errrrrr ha.

so off i go to the ER, spend the next 5hours in the hospital getting fixed up, bandaged like a mummy and then ofcourse the most lovely of tetnis shots.

and that was how i spent my tuesday night

so now its turkey day and im about to put bill's CD back in and figure me out something to use during hand sanding so this doesn't happen again!

Happy Turkeyday!
~J

Originally Posted by jscott

so now its turkey day and im about to put bill's CD back in and figure me out something to use during hand sanding so this doesn't happen again!

TV remote's power button to turn it off? I had the same thing happen to me, while just cleaning the loose rust off the blade with a rag and CLR Metal Clear but with less dire consequences -- a good amount of CA fixed it up... Eventually.

WOW, reading that response from the wife made the hair on the back of my neck stand up...it was almost as if I could hear MY wife!

WELL, on the up side, at least you cleaned most of that nasty crap off the razor before you decided to introduce it to your blood stream!

AND, now this give you pleanty of time to read up on restoration......

C utz

Bill does stress vigilance and attention during restoration of a blade. He even jokes asking something like "Still have all your fingers" at one point on his CD.

I am always affraid of the blades I restore and never had the courage to do anything else while working on a blade. Even a dull blade will sharpen as you sand it. Your post just reinforces that fear. I did jam my fingers into a brand new 80 grit belt once. Took a while for the skin to grow back on those finger tips. Now I have a healthy respect for my belt sander too.

Next time make sure the blade is securely mounted on a jig or a jeweller's pin when you work on it and make yourself a sanding stick for hand sanding. It keeps hands and fingers away from the business end of the razor, just in case you slip up.

Sorry to hear about your accident and I wish you a quick recovery.

ok, this post just reinforced the fact that i need to find a better way to hold the blade while i sand it with the dremel. Anyone have some pics of what they use? i have just been holding it in my hand (or pressing it flat on a board with my fingers) and if it wasnt a big dull wedge i would be much more scared.
thanks
B

I would tape the blade or put it in a vise.

Hope you have a speedy recovery!

direct all inquiries to lord Lerch and Ilija... they are the ones with all the answers.