Thread: What to do...

So I've got an old mid to late 1800s G. Wostenholm 1/4 hollow that I love, but I've been thinking about maybe rescaling it. Now the blade does have some patina on it and I'm not sure if I should try polishing it out or just leaving it alone. What would y'all recommend as far as the blade finish, polish or leave it alone? Also I'm thinking of making my own wood scales for it. What kind of wood do y'all think would accentuate the look of the blade?

I'm also picking up a W&B "The Celebrated" that will probably need new scales too. It's a very similar blade profile to the Wostenholm, so would y'all recommend the same wood for both, or change them up?

Here's the Wostenholm.

Firstly, Nice razor!

If it was me, I'd just sand off the corrosion on the tail and give it a light polish all over.

No need for a mirror finish on this IMO.

Thanks. I was kind of thinking that same thing. Now I just need help figuring out a good looking wood that would compliment the blade. Any suggestions?

Your choice of wood to some extent depends on how much work you want in working/prepping it.

Some wood may really catch your eye but may need work grain filling and making it water resistant etc.

I've found that Bubinga is particularly water resistant, yet can but quite figured, and comes up really well when polished to a high gloss finish.

Im not too terribly worried about the amount of work that needs to go into them. I've got some power tools that will assist in making a set of scales. And for finish, I figure since Im not going to mirror polish the blade, I dont want a high gloss on the scales. Nor do I want them to look brand new either. I figure a satin finish would be best and I would like a wood that has a bit of a subtly grain, but that is noticeable and perhaps a darker wood over all. Nothing too dark like ebony, but certainly not maple either. Im just torn as to what might look good with this style blade.

I agree, a reasonably dark wood, with satin finish would look great.

For that satin finish, you can't go far wrong with most 'traditional' woods and a coating of tung oil, maybe something along the lines of mahogany.

The ones I've been looking at and kinda tossing around are walnut, cherry, Bolivian rosewood, bocote, or bubinga. I love mahogany, but the grain of it just doesnt seem too appealing to me. I made a couple guitars back in the day out of mahogany and I always used either a solid paint color finish or a wood veneer top if I was using a transparent finish.

It looks like there are some deep pits in there that will be tough to get out. IMO it's better to leave a patina with pitting like that. Otherwise you get bright shiny metal with pits, it throws the whole thing off.
If you do take the patina off in the process of cleaning it up, I'd suggest aging it with some kind of darkening or bluing process to put some kind of artificial patina back on it, and make it look a little aged.