Need advice - hand sanding my first ebay razor.

Here it is after getting it out of the scales this afternoon:
Attachment 128240

After sanding with 320 grit 3m auto wet/dry for awhile:
Attachment 128241

What do you call this, a half hollow, a wedge?
Attachment 128242

I'm going to have to be careful with what I do on the front as I chose this one for the etching:
Attachment 128243

And not sure how much I can sand the tang:
Attachment 128244



Not knowing how I could damage the razor, I don't want to push my luck removing metal if it will damage it. How do I know when I need to stop? I've got the rest of my sampler packs of 3m, from 320 where I started up to 2500 and some blue magic polish. As I've only read a bit and am in practice a complete beginner, any advice is welcome. I'd like to get it as clean as possible and don't mind how long it takes or the work, but don't want to break it.

p.s. If anyone is available to help me learn this stuff and honing in Houston I'm willing to pay in cigars, booze, and food.

-Derek

Derek, I am down in Texas City. I have been successful using a reloading vibrating tumbler for cleaning and polishing blades. If the etching is deep, looks like yours is, you can put it in this tumbler with some walnut media or corn media with a little additive, (metal polish) and the razor should come out nice and shiny, like new. I have put some old Wade and Butchers in there and one had some engraving on the blade, and it came out fine. Takes a little longer but it does save time sanding by hand. I do not know if you are familiar with a case tumbler or not but the blade does not actually tumble, it pretty much floats in the bed of media while it vibrates around. I would be glad to meet up with you and show you what I can plus we have lots of resources to pull from in the Houston area.
I also like cigars, booze, and food!

Robert

Sounds to me like; - Houston, we solved the problem!

Nice razor, I like the tennis-match. Can't tell how deep that is, but the marking on the tang looks deeply-cut to me, and I doubt you could sand that out if you wanted to.

Looks like a full hollow, I think. Hope it comes out well for you.

One thing I always do is note how much flex the razor already has & then & start at the finest grit that will have an effect on the rust etc. I think starting at 320 as you did was a safe bet. You always have to be happy with the job yourself but it is possible to go further than is safe if sanding too long or too coarse.

I would say you have something in the half hollow range there. You can look at the Henckels ratings here & judge what grind it most closely resembles.
The straight razor - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Quote:

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

One thing I always do is note how much flex the razor already has & then & start at the finest grit that will have an effect on the rust etc. I think starting at 320 as you did was a safe bet. You always have to be happy with the job yourself but it is possible to go further than is safe if sanding too long or too coarse.

I would say you have something in the half hollow range there. You can look at the Henckels ratings here & judge what grind it most closely resembles.
The straight razor - Straight Razor Place Wiki

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I've seen people mention the flex. Is this what you feel from just pushing a thumb against the side of the blade? I think this is one of those things that would be easier to be shown than to get from a description in print.

It's possible I have already sanded too long as when I finished last night it looks like the bottom of the blade is actually a little thicker than than the area with that dark spot I was sanding. Although I sanded across the span of the blade, I did not get the bottom span as well right along the bevel.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DOGRAH

Derek, I am down in Texas City. I have been successful using a reloading vibrating tumbler for cleaning and polishing blades. If the etching is deep, looks like yours is, you can put it in this tumbler with some walnut media or corn media with a little additive, (metal polish) and the razor should come out nice and shiny, like new. I have put some old Wade and Butchers in there and one had some engraving on the blade, and it came out fine. Takes a little longer but it does save time sanding by hand. I do not know if you are familiar with a case tumbler or not but the blade does not actually tumble, it pretty much floats in the bed of media while it vibrates around. I would be glad to meet up with you and show you what I can plus we have lots of resources to pull from in the Houston area.
I also like cigars, booze, and food!

Robert

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Hey Robert, I sent you a message with my contact info. I'd read the thread about the vibratory tumbler and signed up for an in-stock notification for the Midway tumbler a few weeks ago. Although I've heard awful things about the Harbor Freight tumbler, I'm tempted to stop by on the way to Costco today.

I may have sanded too much last night, but I understand the tumbler is very gentle and it's probably my best shot for cleaning it up the rest of the way if I can do it.

If you want to get rid of the pitting, then 320 is much too fine.
No matter how fine or coarse you choose the paper, if you want to get rid of the pitting, you're going to have to remove X amount of metal. Choosing a fine grit will do nothing except insure than you're sanding much longer than you have to.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bruno

If you want to get rid of the pitting, then 320 is much too fine.
No matter how fine or coarse you choose the paper, if you want to get rid of the pitting, you're going to have to remove X amount of metal. Choosing a fine grit will do nothing except insure than you're sanding much longer than you have to.

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Yes, I was concerned with going too low on the grit and removing too much metal - I may have done so already, but it may very well be OK - I don't know. I did scrub pretty good on it for probably an hour or so, using some WD-40 on it as well. It sounds like I'll be meeting some SRP people locally soon and I'll know more about what I've done to it.

Since I had to run to the store today anyhow and drove past a Harbor Freight, I went ahead and picked up a tumbler and some crushed English walnut lizzard substrate from Petco (not sure if this is course or fine grade). If it looks like it's going OK and not removing the tennis etching I suppose I'll need to pick up some corncob and mix in the blue magic. I read of some corncob material being sold at Walmart, so will give that a try I guess.

If the etching looks alright around bedtime tonight, do you think it'll be safe to leave it overnight? I'm wondering about metal above the bevel where I sanded as well. Those pictures I took show where I left off last night but it's probably hard to tell just from them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RADisorder

I've seen people mention the flex. Is this what you feel from just pushing a thumb against the side of the blade? I think this is one of those things that would be easier to be shown than to get from a description in print.

It's possible I have already sanded too long as when I finished last night it looks like the bottom of the blade is actually a little thicker than than the area with that dark spot I was sanding. Although I sanded across the span of the blade, I did not get the bottom span as well right along the bevel.

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Really it's just a point of reference. When you sand/grind on a blade it becomes thinner. There are many full hollows that shave very well that have a very thin flexible blade. If you are restoring a thicker blade you simply must not exceed the full hollow geometry.

Pitting removal is often a compromise & etches are almost always less deep than the pitting so getting rid of one gets rid of the other. Hollow blades have less room for error & a light cleanup is often the safest approach, especially for a first time.

I'll weigh in.

What you have before you looks great,
Clean up the previous sanding marks,
Hone and enjoy.

One of our other members added a beautiful forced patina (as he called it yes you Carl...) to a blade and all can say is WOW,
For me it really helped capture the blade.
So many want shiny and new looking, (buy a new blade)
I enjoy the history, story, and life behind it.

But alas to each his own, I have no doubt it will look great and shave as well as it looks in the long run.

Cheers

Pat

I have left the blade in the tumbler for many hours at a time. Check it periodically, mostly because you are curious that way,
( I was). It should be fine. One note on the corn cob, there is a regular and fine cob mix for the tumbler. I got my media at Bass Pro Shop. The walnut will clean the thing pretty well and leave a little shine. When you put it in the corn cob, let it run a little while and then add some of the metal polish. I have a theory that the media needs to bang the rough edges off of each other to really polish the metal. It just seemed that way yo me. I know when I added that first bit of polish the cleaning accelorated a good bit. I think you will like the results.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

Really it's just a point of reference. When you sand/grind on a blade it becomes thinner. There are many full hollows that shave very well that have a very thin flexible blade. If you are restoring a thicker blade you simply must not exceed the full hollow geometry.

Pitting removal is often a compromise & etches are almost always less deep than the pitting so getting rid of one gets rid of the other. Hollow blades have less room for error & a light cleanup is often the safest approach, especially for a first time.

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I don't know for sure, but I imagine the blade is ok with what I've done to it. I definitely took off more metal from the spine down the rest and left more metal near that last millimeter or two near the edge. I was concerned with damaging the edge sanding so shied away from it. I'm excited to try this half hollow if it turns out alright as I've only shaved with two full hollows so far. I'm already looking for a full wedge restore project so I can check that out as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pfries

I'll weigh in.

What you have before you looks great,
Clean up the previous sanding marks,
Hone and enjoy.

One of our other members added a beautiful forced patina (as he called it yes you Carl...) to a blade and all can say is WOW,
For me it really helped capture the blade.
So many want shiny and new looking, (buy a new blade)
I enjoy the history, story, and life behind it.

But alas to each his own, I have no doubt it will look great and shave as well as it looks in the long run.

Cheers

Pat

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Yeah, when I saw the e-bay pictures I thought this thing might have a beautiful patina, but the low lighting photos had something to do with that. When I got it in my hands I wanted to clean it up a bit and couldn't resist doing something with it. I think this one will keep much of it's charm. Searching the internet I found only one other blade with this etching and it was mostly faded away. I am interested to know more about this blade, when it was made and so forth - I really like it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DOGRAH

I have left the blade in the tumbler for many hours at a time. Check it periodically, mostly because you are curious that way,
( I was). It should be fine. One note on the corn cob, there is a regular and fine cob mix for the tumbler. I got my media at Bass Pro Shop. The walnut will clean the thing pretty well and leave a little shine. When you put it in the corn cob, let it run a little while and then add some of the metal polish. I have a theory that the media needs to bang the rough edges off of each other to really polish the metal. It just seemed that way yo me. I know when I added that first bit of polish the cleaning accelorated a good bit. I think you will like the results.

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After about 10 hours, I see little to no change but that is nothing new from what I've read. I did find this post from a guy who used the same type of media I've got and after a few razors claimed that there was no difference between it and the corncob. It does look very fine to me, maybe moreso than the other walnut medias, but I have nothing to compare it to. So, I'll let it keep running over night and am going to mix some blue magic around in there tomorrow when I can monitor it and see its effects. Like you said, I've heard that really makes a difference.

Oh, the screw on top of the tumbler was pretty hot when I checked it last. I'm wondering if this is normal or if its a harbor freight tumbler thing. If it happens to give out, I'm glad there is a 90 day return policy and I have a store nearby. I am going to let it cool down for a half hour before running it overnight.

So, it's been eventful this time, at least as eventful as waiting around for the tumbling polisher to work can be. I added most of a 7 dollar tub of blue magic this morning and it's run for around 12 hours. It's had much more effect that with the plain walnut.

The good - it's visibly cleaning up some of the rust around the etching:
Attachment 128420

and polishing out the 320 grit scratches a bit:
Attachment 128421
Attachment 128422Attachment 128423

The bad - It's developing a chip about three quarters of the way down the nose where I sanded with the 320 grit:
Attachment 128424Attachment 128425

So, if I could do it over again of course I would put it in the tumbler before sanding. As it is, I think the blades integrity is fine and it would hone up alright - at least that's my guess. But, if I continue to polish it in the tumbler the chip is going to get bigger.

I do really like the effect the tumbler is having. The rust looked more like grime than attractive patina to me and I'm glad it's coming off. I don't think the blade will be weakened too much if I continue tumbling except maybe right on the nose. I imagine I'd be able to sand it on the end carefully by hand a round it off just a bit. Assuming that the razor isn't damaged from tumbling any more than increasing that chip a bit, does that sound possible sanding it way by hand?

p.s. I think the Harbor Freight tumbler heard me talking bad about it. This morning the wingnut on top was so hot it burned and I pulled my hand back. I let it cool awhile, then the next time I checked on it, the threads were stripped and the washer was riding up. So, I removed a washer and threaded it lower. The following time I checked, the nut had fallen off completely and it had bore a hole in the plastic cover. Rigging it again with a lock washer and repositioning - it's stable for the time being I guess.

Well, I think I'm done with the blade. Overall, I'm very happy with it as I don't mind the light pitting as much as the rust - of which I got 95% out.

It's cool how you can use the tumbler to remove rust and polish without messing up etchings:
Attachment 128820

These are the 2 areas where I couldn't get off enough rust to my liking, but still much, much, much better than where I started:
Attachment 128821Attachment 128822

I would have kept going, but the nose was wearing down from where I'd oversanded. I sanded the pit in the earlier pictures down and the tip had worn down in the tumbler a bit as well:
Attachment 128823

So, now I have this and thinking about my first repinning. What I'd really like to do with this some day is take an old wooden tennis racket to make scales out of:
Attachment 128824

This wedge seems very small. I might just clean it up or may make another:
Attachment 128825

One question I have about repinning is that the hole in the blade is much larger than the hole in the scales. Before I unpinning it you could actually move it around by pulling on it. I'm wondering if I should just drill the holes in the scales bigger and use larger than 1/16 pins or what is normally done?

I Think Most Guys Put Tubing In The Pin Hole To "Fill" The Gap.

Simple idea that should work, thanks. Is that the normal sized hole in the blade or do they differ very much? Just curious as this was the first I unpinned.

Pivot hole in the razor has very little to do with alignment in scales. Even if you bush the tang dead centre it can still close off to one side if the tang is not true. Many old razor pivots were simply punched thru when hot & were rarely true & often over sized. The plasticity of horn etc is what made it & some other materials perfect for scaling razors. A little heat & voila.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

Pivot hole in the razor has very little to do with alignment in scales. Even if you bush the tang dead centre it can still close off to one side if the tang is not true. Many old razor pivots were simply punched thru when hot & were rarely true & often over sized. The plasticity of horn etc is what made it & some other materials perfect for scaling razors. A little heat & voila.

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Yeah, I saw the trick of dunking misaligned horn scales in boiling water to straighten - that's a good one. The issue here isn't scale alignment, but the hole was so big compared to the pin, it would move around. Chev's suggestion to put a small tube in there should fix it.

Sounds like the old razor makers didn't generally regulate pivot holes, straight jimps and symmetrical spines so much as today.