~175 years and counting.

[UKJim]

Picked up this old blade as part of a job lot of 3 for £21.... felt I had nothing to lose as the other two were in much better condition & really only needed some light polishing and then honing.

Decided to have a go at renovating it because I didn't had a full wedge & I kind of liked the idea of getting a really old edge back into a useable shape.

I figure that it is about 175 years old..... I did find some info in an old newspaper about the maker

Maker was William Revitt, of Stannington, Sheffield. His business was conducted from Meadow Street, and he first appears in the 1825 Sheffield Directory. There was a flood in Sheffield in 1865, and Wm Revitt claimed £4 10s 0d loss of property!”
​

He went bankrupt in 1860 - THE LONDON GAZETTE, OCTOBER 2, 1860

​

So at least 165 years old & perhaps 190 years old. Amazing what you can find out with Google & some time to waste.....

Anyway - here's the "Before" pictures



The scales are broken... but the owner obviously used it for a while with the broken scales - there is a notch hacked out of the scales & it has had a bodge repair with string. When I cut the string it just fell apart.

I considered creating a brass backing & using the original scales, but decided to make new horn scales from scratch. Decided to cut notches into the new scales (but not the bone wedge) as a remeberance of the originals. Here's the "after" pics



Sadly I lost most of the etching in the cleanup, and still left some of the rust pitting as I didn't think it right to remove too much of the blade to get a mirror finish.

Took me a dogs age to hone this - lots of deep pitting on the edge & I am not convinced that the blade wasn't warped as well.

I will use it tomorrow morning. I now have another large wedge, but really didn't enjoy it.... hoping this one will be better.

 

[Gamma]

Nice!

 

[KZero]

Nice save! Great job on the scales, especially.

 

[TimS]

I like how that looks; it has great character and looks very distinguished for it's age. Nice job!

 

[mjclark]

Good job!
It's so good to bring these razors into the 21st century, and I'm sure that the craftsmen who made these would be proud that their work was still serviceable and being appreciated over a century later

 

[UKJim]

Shaved with the razor this morning.... And it was OK, but not as smooth as I was hoping - Needs to go back to the stones again I think.

Maybe it just needs a better edge and I am not seeing it at it's best.... or maybe I just have a strong preference for hollows.

 

[Doc226]

Very nice razor, lov the character.

Have you calculated the bevel angle, hard to tell from the pictures but it looks thick at the spine and not too big a blade.

 

[UKJim]

Have you calculated the bevel angle, hard to tell from the pictures but it looks thick at the spine and not too big a blade.

How do I do this ?

And if the bevel angle was too large, then how do I correct?

 

[Doc226]

How do I do this ?

And if the bevel angle was too large, then how do I correct?

Send me the measurements by email or PM and I will let you know

 

[UKJim]

Doc - well spotted !!!

Ok, so I measured the blade - spine thickness 6.3mm, blade width 15.7mm giving me a 23 degree bevel angle - which might explain the lack of smoothness in the shave (must check if this is the same problem with my other wedge)

So I'm guessing I should be aiming for 17-18 degrees - yes? Which would mean reducing the spine down to ~4.8mm

How would I take the spine thickness down by 1.5mm without further reducing the edge width?
.....Tape the edge & hone away on my DMT1200?
.....Buy a DMT 325 or 600 & hone away with a taped edge?
.....Use my belt sander to grind it away? (Being careful about heating the blade of course.)

 

[bluesman 7]

You have a lot of steel to grind off there. I would use a belt grinder or bench grinder to do the heavy lifting, using periodic passes on a coarse hone with the edge taped to see where the high spots are. If you stay away from the edge you should not have any trouble keeping the blade cool, there is a lot of mass there.

Now, that said. Being that you are dealing with a wedge, if you thin the spine that much, you will have little, if any, of the original surface left, so it's as if you will be regrinding the whole profile. I might regrind it into a hollow, if it were mine, because I like that kind of thing, but you will be using a 175 year old razor as if it is a blank of tempered steel. I think I would more likely set it aside as a piece of history and choose another razor to work on.

 

[August West]

If a razor could talk.

 

[Doc226]

It is going to be tough. I would tape the edge and hone os a course stone or better yet some w/d sandpaper, start wtih 320 and stay there until the spine is thinned down.

After getting the spine thinned, be prepared to spend a long time getting the bevel set, as it is now the bevel width is quite large.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[pmaster]

By the size of the tang and given that the bevel angle is so big, I wonder if it wasn't a lot larger initially?

 

[Doc226]

By the size of the tang and given that the bevel angle is so big, I wonder if it wasn't a lot larger initially?

I am sure it was.

Maybe someone fixed a chip on the edge and taped it