Thread: Not sure how to proceed with cleaning

I have a Wade & Butcher that is pretty tarnished but has no rust or pitting, as you can see from the attached image. I went over it with Prism metal polish for the initial cleaning. I then went over it with 320 grit paper, wet sanding with WD40. It cleaned up pretty well considering the shape that it was in when I started. I guess that my question is this. Do I continue with 320 at this point or move to something lighter? Do I forgo sandpaper at this point and switch to polish? If polish, do I need a buffer?

I'm concerned about eating into the etching on the blade. As you can see, near the bottom that seems to already be happening. The razor does feel smooth to the touch, no rough spots at all, not that that really means anything.

On another note, I have an old Delta bench grinder. If I swap out the grinding wheels for polishing wheels will that be adequate or is a grinder and a polisher two very different things? I do not believe that what I have is variable speed.

Any thoughts on the next step in the cleaning process would be appreciated. I really don't want to ruin this razor.



Thanks!

I would try the buffing pads with green and then white if no rust or pitting. Go lightly and do not put pressure on the wheels. Keep a cup of water handy and dunk the razor every couple seconds to keep it cool. See what it looks like here before going any further.

Have fun.

+1 to what Lynn said. Another thing you can try is to use steel wool(#0-#0000) with the metal polish. Steel wool won't eat into the etching.

Lynn,

I hate to sound ignorant, but in this case it can't be helped. Do you mean buying buffing wheels for my grinder and using that? By green and white I assume that you are talking about the actual buffing compound that I would apply to the wheels. If so, I will look into that. Also, are some buffing pads (wheels?) better than others? I have no experience with this (can you tell?). Okay, off to look at some other posts and HOWTOs...

I do mean buffing wheels. Caswell has some nice ones. I would drop down to 4 and 6 inch wheels. I like the sewn pads for everything up to the rouges and then I use the loose wheel. The green and white are buffing compounds.

I think I still have a video up on psyswiped's youtube site showing what I do with these.

Good luck. Nice razor.

When you say that you use sewn pads for up to the rouges and then the loose wheel, where does the green and white come in compared to the rouges? Would I get the loose wheels for the green and white? I saw this wheel, a 6" x 1/2", would that be the correct one? Is there a recommended place to get the buffing compounds? I looked online but was a bit confused by all of the different ones out there (most were green...). Any more advice for the thoroughly confused?

as per my polishing SS -for other than shaving porpoises-, i'd say that you're safe going to 600 on the paper before polish. you can control paper better than polisher. i have paper to 2000 grit, and it may go finer, but 600 is pretty slick.

and yeah, bench grinder make into polisher.

can't reply offhand on the rouges, have to look it up like anybuddy else.

Did you get a chance to watch this?

YouTube - Light Straight Razor Restoration