Crown & Sword razor, repair and a puzzle...

[jamesbeat]

I got this razor as part of a collection of five. I wouldn't have bought it on its own because of the heavy hone wear, but I wanted the other razors in the lot so I ended up with it.

I thought I might try and rescue the poor thing, so I reshaped it on my bench grinder. Don't panic, I'm pretty good with a grinder and I haven't destroyed the temper of the blade!

Here's a before shot:

And here it is after reshaping:

For anyone considering using a bench grinder for something like this, the best advice is probably 'don't'!
The metal is so thin near the edge that it is way too easy to overheat thee blade and ruin the temper. I only attempted this because it was a junk blade and I wouldn't have cried if I damaged it.
The trick is to go very slow. Have a glass of water nearby, and dunk the blade in before and after each pass. Some dishwashing liquid in the water helps to wet the blade evenly.
Each pass should be done quickly and smoothly, and the blade must be moving all the time. Each pass should last less than a second, and the blade should be immediately dunked in the water each and every time.
If the metal changes colour, the razor is junk.

Anyway, so I gave the razor a straight horizontal edge, and reshaped the point and heel of the blade, and now I'm happy with it.

What I want to know before I start trying to set the bevel is do I need to make the spine thinner?
The blade has been reduced substantially in width, so I'm guessing the spine will now need to be thinner to get the angle right?



Now for the puzzle!
Here are the markings on the tang:

'Great' I thought, 'the razor was made by ERN in 1935. Why didn't all manufacturers date their razors?'
But then I found this picture of another ERN:

NowI'm pretty sure that the above razor was not made in 1166, so it looks like the 1935 on my razor is not the date of manufacture. Maybe a model number?
Has anyone got any idea how old my razor is? The scales are Ebonite (black hard rubber), so I'm guessing it dates from sometime before plastics were widely used.

 

[Thebigspendur]

Are you sure the scales are hard rubber and not celluloid? The rubber was mostly used in the 1800s and I doubt the razor is anywhere near that old.

As far as the spine goes I wouldn't mess with it or you will really throw the edge geometry off. You already have a good bit of spine wear anyway. I can't see the profile of the razor but if it is really changed it may need to be reground.

 

[jamesbeat]

Well I don't think the razor is worth regrinding, I'll just try honing it and see what happens. I have put something of a bevel on it already and it's looking ok so far, despite the uneven spine wear it seems that the bevel is going on evenly.
I already got it sharp enough to slice through paper (I did this to check for invisible faults on the edge) and after further honing, it's now taking hairs off my forearm, but it's not quite there yet.

And yes, the scales are definitely ebonite. I'm new to razors, but I have some experience with fountain pens, and both ebonite and celluloid were very commonly used in their construction.
A good test for ebonite is to heat the object gently for a few seconds and smell it. Ebonite gives off a very characteristic burnt rubber smell.

Be very careful if you try this, especially if using an open flame, because celluloid is VERY flammable! The main component of celluloid is nitrocellulose, which is the propellant used in modern smokeless smallarms ammunition.

I had a very spectacular accident with a celluloid fountain pen once, luckily not a valuable one....

Another good indicator of ebonite is that the black stuff goes brown over time (due to sulphur compounds breaking down I believe). There is a proprietory treatment for this, but it's expensive and time consuming. It's easier just to gently sand it off, you only have to remove a very thin layer from the surface to get it back to black.

The scales on this razor had this brown 'dusty' appearance, and I could thus tell at a glance that they were ebonite.

 

[lax1mxr]

Nicely done!

I have also done something similar via a belt sander. I always take the edge off with some scrap sanpaper first, so I don't cut the belt sander belt. Just a few seconds at a time and you get a very straight edge to start with. I only do this though with blades that have straight spines. Have not tried this with any kind of swayback or curved spine. Your method with probably work better for those types of blades.

I actually saved an old Wade & butcher with an chipped blade last night.

+1 on the regrind, you should be able to get a decent bevel and shave fine with it. C&S/ERN make very fine shavers and you have saved one from the scrap pile!!

 

[jamesbeat]

Why thank you

This isn't actually the first edge I have repaired, I also have a Mappin's 'Three Shilling Razor' that I bought off ebay and the seller had neglected to mention that it had a large chip in the edge about 3mm deep (they used some creative photography so it wasn't visible )

I performed similar surgery on that one, and it seems to have turned out ok.
Unfortunately I'm a complete novice when it comes to honing, indeed I intend to use these repaired razors to practice on.

I don't seem to have got my technique down just yet, I can get an edge that will take some hair off my arm, what a knife enthusiast would call 'shaving sharp'. I don't seem to be able to get past that at the moment, but I'm enjoying the learning process.

 

[jamesbeat]

Well, I just tried shaving with this razor after further extensive honing and stropping, and the results were a little disappointing.

Evidently my honing/stropping skills are lacking, as the razor only partly shaved the hair off my face, leaving quite a lot of whiskers untouched in its wake.

Nevertheless, the razor had no edge whatsoever after I reshaped it, so I must be on the right track, maybe I just need diamond paste on my strop or something.

Incidentally, I did regrind the spine in the end. I worked out that the spine wasn't resting on the hone evenly, and it was making honing difficult, it was wobbling like a chair with a short leg.
I simply ground the less worn part of the spine until it matched the worn part in width, and then used some 220 grit sandpaper to level it all out.

 

[UbuRoy]

The scales seems to be Guttapercha and not Celluloid.
I would date them to the late 19th Century. Perhaps 1870.

The number on the tang has nothing to do with the date of production.
Sadly no german smith or grinder mark any blade with the production year but this would be a good idea!

There is another pic on an nearly identical Ern Crown & Sword Razor shown here in the forum with number 1934. Seems that is the older sister ;-)

...........\\V///
__.ooO_(O-O)_Ooo.__
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Was Du nicht willst, das man Dir tut, tu' auch keinem andern an oder mach's als ERSTER.

 

[jamesbeat]

Wow, it's pretty old then!

I suspected that it was reasonably old because of the scale material, but I didn't realise how old.

Guttapercha eh? That's interesting. I knew it was some kind of hardened latex. I should really have called it 'black hard rubber', or 'BHR', because 'ebonite' is a trade name for a specific product. BHR is more of a catch-all term to represent any type of hardened rubber, including guttapercha.

The wedge appears to be ivory.

Well now I know that this razor is pretty old, I'm even more determined to get it into a usable condition. I really like the idea of shaving with a razor that's over 100 years older than me!

 

[UbuRoy]

Jepp. Black hard rubber is also a kind of latex from a special tree from indonesia.
It smells completely other than celluloid. More "rubbish" and it can fade it's colour (whitening) in some cases (perhaps under hot water).

Have attention, it is - because of it's age - hardened (or bonded?) and very brittle if you try to riveting the pins or anything else!!!

I mean, Ebonite is a kind if Celluloid, also Galalith and Ivorine (Ivory imitate), Mother-of-Pearl-Imitate, Broken-ice or Schildpatt Imitat (tortoise-shell?-imitate).
Much easier to work with Celluloid as with Guttapercha.

 

[jamesbeat]

Sorry, gotta correct you there, ebonite is not celluloid, it's hard rubber

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebonite

I believe it's made from normal latex from the rubber tree rather than gutta percha, but the two are so similar as to make no real difference.

You're right about it being brittle, it can crack very easily and the broken pieces look almost like glass.

 

[UbuRoy]

Ah, many thanks! That was new for me. Thought Ebonite is also celluloid.

The only difference between hard rubber latex and gutta percha seems, the guttapercha is another tree (from malaysia/Indonesia) and hard rubber mostly come from another tree from south america?

Guttapercha was mostly used for Golf Balls, Cable insulation etc. (Terpen) and Hard Rubber was (for example) used for Razor Scales.
I love Wiki !

 

[jamesbeat]

....And for fillings apparently!

I have a root canal filling in one of my teeth, and the dentist told me that he was using a plug of gutta percha to fill the canal originally occupied by the nerve.

You weren't wrong though, the scales on my razor could be made of either ebonite or gutta percha. I guess there's no way to tell, and to be honest, no point in trying to find out

 

[jamesbeat]

I thought I'd post an update on this razor, since I have just shaved with it

It started off as what I estimate to be a large 7/8 or maybe even an 8/8 blade, but it had such heavy hone wear that the blade was tapered towards the point to the extent that after grinding the edge to make it horizontal, it is now a 6/8!

I obviously had to put a completely new bevel on it after it was ground level, and thanks to some advice from this forum, I have managed to hone it and get it shave ready.

I must admit I dropped myself in at the deep end because I have no prior experience of razors and this was quite an extensive repair job.
It took me a while, but the learning curve, although steep, has been enjoyable.

I hope this will give some other newbies hope, honing really isn't that difficult, and the guys here are patient and helpful if you need guidance.

I'm certainly a long way off from being a honemeister, but I definitely enjoyed turning this hunk of junk into a working razor again. Here's to another 150 odd years