First completish restoration & rescale

[BakerAndBadger]

Well here goes, my first restoration and rescale. I didn't go overboard on shiny as I don't think I'll be able to get it much better and I had to finish in a hurry as SWMBO is on her way home!

Here's my Thiers-Issard 69 No. 55 Frameback brought back from the dead....

Before:

 

[BakerAndBadger]

And after:

 

[Xiomaro]

nice, i like the purple

 

[drathgeb]

How was the shave?

 

[BakerAndBadger]

Didn't use it yet, tried honing and the smile is too pronounced so have bread knifed it as I don't have the skills to hone a smile yet! Will try and hone it this week. Will let you all know!

 

[ladykate]

Didn't use it yet, tried honing and the smile is too pronounced so have bread knifed it as I don't have the skills to hone a smile yet! Will try and hone it this week. Will let you all know!

It's your razor but here my plea! Don't take out the smile if you haven't as yet! Smiles are OK if they aren't pronounced and even then they are OK. Frowns are bad... smiles... I likey. Your razor doesn't look too bad to hone with the smile. Try it once!

Skills are easy to learn for a smile... just move the lateral angle of your blade as you do the stroke so that the smile parts are generally aligned to 90 degrees of the direction of the stroke. This is usually just a slight rotation of the handle as you progress down the stone. You don't have to be perfect. For extreme smiles, it can be difficult since the spine has to be adjusted (if you make the blade) but for modest ones like yours, they are a big plus (IMHO).

Here was a difficult smile. It is not only hard to hone, it is difficult to shave with because of all the angle changing. The spine had to be narrowed towards the point so the edge would meet the stone at the correct angle. Not only did the handle have to moved somewhat radically as the stroke was made, the blade itself had to be rocked down on the narrowed portion as the stroke finished. With all that, it still came out fine. :



Here is an easier one that really didn't take much twisting and turning:



Here is one of medium difficulty - but well worth the effort - fantastic shaver:



Here is a rebuilt Wosty that I purchased as is (I didn't do the rebuild). The smile is meant to be in the blade (as is the two above). It was fairly easy to tame. Taking it out would have ruined the mojo (apologies to Doc226 ;-} ):

 

[BakerAndBadger]

Sorry to say but I've taken the majority of the smile out. The spine narrows gradually from front to back as the blade was originally deeper at the tip than at the toe. Although it naturally kicks up at the point the middle had been honed to a lovely smile and it was, for me, impossible to get the point and toe to touch even with an attempted rocking x.
The geometry of the blade is still intact and so I'll hone it as it is now and let you all know if I screwed up my first TI or not!

 

[BakerAndBadger]

Forgot to say thanks to Legion for his great step by steps of scale making and peening!

 

[alitkty]

Nice work with the scales.

 

[otto76]

Nice! Pretty bold doing your first restoration on a TI. Blade cleaned up nicely!

 

[BakerAndBadger]

Cheers, now if only I could get it to hone.....

 

[ladykate]

Cheers, now if only I could get it to hone.....

It might be warped a bit. Bummer if it is. Still - fantastic experience working with it and it looks cool. I had a blade come in a few weeks back that had a wave in the spine. On first glance, it looked fine but the hone marks showed high spots on the ends of the spine and uneven spine wear in the center. The blade itself seemed fine. It took hours to fix. Essentially, I reground the spine so it followed the blade. I did it all by hand on some coarse stones. I was sneezing black stuff for a few hours afterwards. After wearing it down, I repolished the spine so the cutting wasn't obvious. It finally came out of it and now it is fixed and should be easy to keep in tune. Just takes a while sometimes.

 

[BakerAndBadger]

Not sure whether to continue or put it to one side for a while, second option is currently winning.