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Lessons Learned From Restorations.
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Hey All,
as many know, i have made several razors from scratch, but being in between workshops at present i am occupying my time with some restorations. These four still in progress are my latest. Thought i might share some things i found of interest that i have learned from these. There are 2 old English razors, an old Swedish razor and a Dovo that is no more than 20 years old.
1. People are grubs. they all had accumulated muck inside the scales.
2. Not one of these had washers between the blade and tang.
3. If you can see any discolouration or rust on the blade in EBay pictures it will be far worse under the scales, near pivot, in jimps, anywhere not shown in the pictures.
4. Different steels definitely show different characteristics. The English razors had the most pitting and it cannot be all removed without removing too much steel. The Dovo is stainless and cleaned up really easily. The Swedish ACME came up with the best polish on the blade {tang has forging marks}. I tend to use Modern Swedish Steel {RWL34} in my Kitchen knives and Razors as it has a tight grain, polishes beautifully and takes and holds an edge very well.... coincidence? Maybe.
5. Craftsmanship between now and then varied greatly. We make them one at a time and can be perfectionists. These guys turned out thousands. Many do not have a straight tang {blade offset to one side} causing scaling issues. The Swedish one has scale hammered into the tang from forging. Likewise one of the English ones has inclusions {possibly from scale} in the blade, but not on the edge. Most pin holes in the tangs are far removed from round. The "peened" pins have had the crap hammered out of them and were all distorted, bent and mushroomed outside and in.
That said - every one of these is perfectly functional. It simply shows the difference in attitude between someone who handcrafts an item one at a time, versus the factory mentality.
These observations are mostly about these four razors. They have held true with others i have had over the years. It is by no means exhaustive and i am not trying to teach anyone to suck eggs. Just thought of these as points of interest to share that some may relate to. Love to hear of anyone else's experiences.
Kind Regards,
Adam.
