Old Blade (restoration?)

WELL, I'm not sure if this counts as a restoration.
It's a razor I won on eBay for $10.51. From the poor photo I could tell it was mislabled as a 'Wester Bro's' razor and was much older than that. I was right, and won it for much less than it was worth.

Below are the eBay Photo's and what actually came.

All in all the razor was in good/great condition considering it's age.

SO, since most of the work was already done (minor brillo scratches where they tried to clean off the water stains - these can best be seen in the eBay image#1), I figured I try to clean her up with out de-pinning it (see next post for the clean-up images)

C utz

Here are the 'after' images (see attached)

I hand sanded the blade from 320 up to 2000. BUT not with the patience of SOME here. I acheived a 'good' mirror polish, with some small scratch marks remaining which look like old grind marks. Considering the age of the razor, I'll let them stay :) Also, I stopped sanding the tang after 600-800 grit. Then polished her up 3x's with maas and 1x with renaissance wax. The scans make the blade glow, but it's the best I could get without making it have an 'oilstain' from the reflection. You can definitely see a difference from the 'before image' above.

The scales now actually have a nice shine to them and reflect a little too (hard to see in the photo's). The 'before' images show how dry and brittle they were. These I sanded too, but since I kept the original pins, you can see around the pins that they are a little rough there. Again, given the age, I'll let it be. I rubbed in 3 coats of neats foot on the outside, 2 on the inside. The scales are definitely more plastic like, and less brittle. I think the crack marks would go away if I soaked the scales for a while. However, I reenforced them with superglue and sanded the glue down.

I originally was going to keep the name etched on the back tang, but it was very hard to make out the whole name, and when sanding you could only make out a few letters....so I took it off. Oh well.

I then polished the scales with maas and a few coats of renaissance wax.

All in all, I think she cleaned up well!
Next, hone and shave!!

(I love this era of razor!)

C utz

All in all great effort. I hope I'll have some time to dedicate to my projects soon. Can't wait to hear the results of the shave-test.