Thread: Polishing a razor

Hi gents, what can I use to remove rust and polish the razor before I hone it? What grit of sandpaper and what type of rust remover?
Thanks in advance for any advice
Tony

Welcome aboard!
I would suggest that there is a lot of information here:
Straight_Razor_Place_Wiki
~Richard

Hi geezer
I've been on here a while thanks for the welcome but I'm just starting to get into honing so that's where I'm at in my learning processes right now!

The wiki is a great section to learn things may i add have learned a lot on my own from that section!

Any polishes that you can recommend for getting rust off a blade?

I use Mothers polish alot on my blades, but I don't think it will get rid of heavy rust. As for sandpaper I usually use 400-2500 wet/dry since that is all I can get locally. Micromesh goes up to 12k, but I haven't used that yet. I try to start with the highest grit possible that I can and still do what needs to be done. The lower you go the more it is going to take to get rid of the scratches. If you dare to use a dremel you could use a wire brush to get rid of alot of the heavy rust, but dremels can be quite dangerous with sharp objects. They can even be dangerous with rather dull objects not to mention can damage a razor quite easily if you don't know what you are doing. One second in lack of concentration can ruin a razor. I wouldn't recommend a dremel to someone that hasn't used one before.

That's the name I couldn't remember mothers polish! It's minor rust and pitting so should I use sandpaper with that or just a rag?

I've used a dremel before but I won't use 1 on my razors!

I would try just a rag at first and see what it does. You might have to spend 30min or more polishing to see the results you want, but a few minutes should give you an idea if just the polish will do what you want it to do. Mothers isn't very abrasive. You might have to sand out the pitting if it is an eye sore to you, but like I said I would try the highest grit that will still do the job fairly easy instead of starting low. Usually what I do is polish a razor and if I see a dramatic improvement in a few minutes I will keep polishing for awhile.

I was really surprised what this stuff did for a rather weathered looking old razor. Just a rag and a tube of this stuff. SimiChrome Polish. Worked great.