Thread: Restoring a B.J. Eyre & Co Challenge, looking for some advice

Given the age an over sized pivot is all too common. Looks like you get to do a Sleeved Pivot. Take a look at sleeved pivot search for other ways to do it.

On my last restore I hand sanded the inside of the pivot by using some twisted 1k wet dry sandpaper. Then I packed the pivot with mothers and twisted some paper to fit in the pivot and used it to polish the inside of the pivot. You could alternatively soak the pivot with one of the acids used to force a patina to convert any active rust to black rust. I would use a phosphoric acid based product like "Krud Kutter The Must for Rust Rust Remover and Inhibitor".

Personally I would stick with the mothers to remove all the rust and not do any sanding, also try to save the original scales.

You are making good progress, keep it up.

Jonathan

Thanks for the link and advice. I actually just finished a very light sanding and another run of Mothers. I taped over the face of the blade to cover the stamp and used some 400 and 600 grit wet dry just to get the active rust off. Once that came off, I went back to the Mothers. There is still pitting and some darkening, but I didn't want to grind off more than was necessary. A few members mentioned possibly leaving some of the imperfections on it. Thinking about it, it's great advice.

I still have the scales and the spacer, though the scales have seen better days. I have some wood slats that will be coming in the mail next week, so I will most likely try my hand at making some new scales.

Originally Posted by Jonah

Thanks for the link and advice. I actually just finished a very light sanding and another run of Mothers. I taped over the face of the blade to cover the stamp and used some 400 and 600 grit wet dry just to get the active rust off. Once that came off, I went back to the Mothers. There is still pitting and some darkening, but I didn't want to grind off more than was necessary. A few members mentioned possibly leaving some of the imperfections on it. Thinking about it, it's great advice.

I still have the scales and the spacer, though the scales have seen better days. I have some wood slats that will be coming in the mail next week, so I will most likely try my hand at making some new scales.

Nice work!

I’m glad you left a little ‘character’ to it!

Feels good to be bringing an item that was of great value to someone long ago back to life and into service doesn’t it!! I like the way it looks! Nice Job!

While I’ve sent some blades in for buffing, all of the straight razors that were given to me by my old Boy Scout Scoutmaster (he’s 92) were all just treated to the newspaper and MASS, then cloth and MASS and they all still look great! When I showed them to him he just beamed!! When he looked at one of them with some nice etching on the blade he exclaimed, “Boy! You can actually read what it says”! One of the razors was his fathers and has no COO (Country of Origin) all it says on the tang is Hair Op. It’s a very nice shaver!

Here’s a link that will help you with making scales, he does a very nice job explaining and showing you how it’s done.

making straight razor scales with a minimum amount of hand tools - YouTube