It's been an incredibly busy week so this is the first chance i've had to mention it, but last weekend the Mrs. and I had the great pleasure of spending the weekend with Bill and his wife Cher.
Before we go any further, i've got to say Mr. Ellis and his wife are the most welcoming, and warm couple i've ever met. You truly cannot find nicer people, they'd give you the shirt of their back.... twice if they could. With that said - Bill's picture (in his avatar) and on his website couldn't be any more misleading. In his pictures - he looks like (no offense) an old geezer. Well, you meet him in person and he looks about 20 years younger and like someone you wouldn't want to **** off
So of course - we spent a ton of time in his "laboritory" where he'd saw, sand, grind, and bang on pretty "ho-hum" looking blades, slabs of wood, etc - and make them look simply gorgeous. The skill this man has is truly incredible. Watching how meticulous he was with EVERYTHING he does (he drives his wife crazy re-arranging the kitchen if anything is out of place) was a BIG eye opener as to why his stuff is so great... he's his own biggest critic.
So - I see a pile of pretty crappy looking razor blades, and I ask "What are those for?" and he says "Oh those? - I'm going to restore 'em." Well... if they were my blades - i'd chuck 'em - but he assured me they were still in great shape - and showed me how quickly he is able to turn them from a beater - into a razor in pretty good condition.
Before....
Literally minutes later...
Obviously - there is a lot more to be done on the blade to make it worthy of coming from Bill's shop - but I was amazed at his ability to turn rusty, crappy looking blades into works of art. I won't reveal all (hell any) of his secrets, but his tricks of restoring blades are really ingenious.
So - I brought along my Chronik razor for him to check out (and look at the embarrassing scale job I did on it with some TI scales) and he to was puzzled by the strange look of the steel. He said "want me to make it look nicer?" so I say "sure" and much to my horror he takes pops the scales off in about 1/2 a second, then proceeds to go to town on it with whirring belts and some spinning disks, and within a few minutes this was the result....
(The 2 pieces of wood are what he plans on re-scaling it with)
Then - Scale time...
I hold onto it, while the mad professor starts prepping something (I have no idea what) and i'm amazed at the feel of them... really smooth/silky, yet beautifully and perfectly rounded (each side/slab evenly)....
Alright - Bill's back at it....
Look at how beautifully rounded these things are....
Time to polish 'em up...
When it's all said and done....
He was really surprised how incredibly fast it took an edge, and the quality of edge it took.
(More pics available here)
Watching him work was quite a fun experience... Bill really knows what he's doing, and is a blast to hang out with. It was quite weird (yet a ton of fun) chatting with someone so knowledgeable in razors, hones, etc. I brought a bunch of razors, hones, etc - and we honed up some razors, tried out some different pastes, etc. He even went over the different razor makers work I had brought (including his own) and rated it, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses. I took detailed notes, and will post the results - but they're quite interesting, and purely fact based.
I learned quite a bit from Bill, and I look forward to learning more from him in the future. He's a hell of a guy - and a hell of a knife/razor maker. If you've had the pleasure of owning his work, you know what i'm talking about.
Stay tuned for fact based custom razor reviews.
Before we go any further, i've got to say Mr. Ellis and his wife are the most welcoming, and warm couple i've ever met. You truly cannot find nicer people, they'd give you the shirt of their back.... twice if they could. With that said - Bill's picture (in his avatar) and on his website couldn't be any more misleading. In his pictures - he looks like (no offense) an old geezer. Well, you meet him in person and he looks about 20 years younger and like someone you wouldn't want to **** off
So of course - we spent a ton of time in his "laboritory" where he'd saw, sand, grind, and bang on pretty "ho-hum" looking blades, slabs of wood, etc - and make them look simply gorgeous. The skill this man has is truly incredible. Watching how meticulous he was with EVERYTHING he does (he drives his wife crazy re-arranging the kitchen if anything is out of place) was a BIG eye opener as to why his stuff is so great... he's his own biggest critic.
So - I see a pile of pretty crappy looking razor blades, and I ask "What are those for?" and he says "Oh those? - I'm going to restore 'em." Well... if they were my blades - i'd chuck 'em - but he assured me they were still in great shape - and showed me how quickly he is able to turn them from a beater - into a razor in pretty good condition.
Before....
Literally minutes later...
Obviously - there is a lot more to be done on the blade to make it worthy of coming from Bill's shop - but I was amazed at his ability to turn rusty, crappy looking blades into works of art. I won't reveal all (hell any) of his secrets, but his tricks of restoring blades are really ingenious.
So - I brought along my Chronik razor for him to check out (and look at the embarrassing scale job I did on it with some TI scales) and he to was puzzled by the strange look of the steel. He said "want me to make it look nicer?" so I say "sure" and much to my horror he takes pops the scales off in about 1/2 a second, then proceeds to go to town on it with whirring belts and some spinning disks, and within a few minutes this was the result....
(The 2 pieces of wood are what he plans on re-scaling it with)
Then - Scale time...
I hold onto it, while the mad professor starts prepping something (I have no idea what) and i'm amazed at the feel of them... really smooth/silky, yet beautifully and perfectly rounded (each side/slab evenly)....
Alright - Bill's back at it....
Look at how beautifully rounded these things are....
Time to polish 'em up...
When it's all said and done....
He was really surprised how incredibly fast it took an edge, and the quality of edge it took.
(More pics available here)
Watching him work was quite a fun experience... Bill really knows what he's doing, and is a blast to hang out with. It was quite weird (yet a ton of fun) chatting with someone so knowledgeable in razors, hones, etc. I brought a bunch of razors, hones, etc - and we honed up some razors, tried out some different pastes, etc. He even went over the different razor makers work I had brought (including his own) and rated it, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses. I took detailed notes, and will post the results - but they're quite interesting, and purely fact based.
I learned quite a bit from Bill, and I look forward to learning more from him in the future. He's a hell of a guy - and a hell of a knife/razor maker. If you've had the pleasure of owning his work, you know what i'm talking about.
Stay tuned for fact based custom razor reviews.
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and yet i don't shave with a straight-go figure.
