Thread: Heat damage?

My post was not a direct reply to yours, but to the people who posted something like 'it might still be allright'. You posted your question in the right place. There is nothing wrong with your question. It's an honest beginners mistake of the kind we all made. It's called a learning process
We all bought duds sometime, and I know I destroyed more than 1 razor in the process of learning to restore. Though luckily, never a rare or expensive one.

Your razor is toast. You can restore it in the meaning 'to make it look good' but not in the meaning 'to return it to being a razor. And the main reason I would advise against it is that when you are done, it may look like a razor, but not be usable as one.

The main reason for my remark about selling is because as you've found out, the discoloration is only superficial. Once you sand it off, any evidence that the razor is ruined, will be gone. So whoever ends up with that razor will not know anything is wrong until he starts honing, and finds that a) the razor will cause unusually black slurry (because the metal abrades much faster than normal) and b) it can't hold an edge.

Since you are new to this, you might not have thought about that, and just fix up the blade and sell it. Not because you have no moras, but simply because you might have thought that if the discoloration is gone it might still be ok.

Originally Posted by Bruno

My post was not a direct reply to yours, but to the people who posted something like 'it might still be allright'.
Of course there is nothing wrong with your question. It's an honest beginners mistake of the kind we all made.
It's called a learning process

Your razor is toast. You can restore it in the meaning 'to make it look good' but not in the meaning 'to return it to being a quality razor. And the main reason I would advise against it is that when you are done, it may look like a razor, but not be usable as one.

The main reason for my remark about selling is because as you've found out, the discoloration is only superficial. Once you sand it off, any evidence that the razor is ruined, will be gone. So whoever ends up with that razor will not know anything is wrong until he starts honing, and finds that a) the razor will cause unusually black slurry (because the metal abrades much faster than normal) and b) it can't hold an edge.

Since you are new to this, you might not have thought about that, and just fix up the blade and sell it. Not because you have no moras, but simply because you might have thought that if the discoloration is gone it might still be ok.

Understood. So a tell tale sign is the slurry? I will put it on my Naniwa and see what happens for my own education. I expect to get shafted on a few razors I just wish it hadn't been a W&B. I guess I can find another one like this though.

Slurry is one of the telltale signs.
On a razor that is 61 HRc, if you hone on a 1K or 4K, the metal will take a long time to abrade.
So it will take some time for the slurry to turn from clear water to grey.
Otoh, if a blade is say 50 HRc, the same will happen much faster, because it abrades faster.

And of course, a blade that is 50 HRc will not be able to hold a shaveready edge for any significant amount of time, if you can get there at all.