Help with George Wostenholm Restore

[Frank Shaves]

I bought this George Wostenholm Celebrated IXL for my first full restore, and I could use a little help - and I promise more photos! Looks like a near wedge to me but what do I know.

Here is what I have accomplished so far:

1. Removed hinge pin (for the first time in my life) using @Slash McCoy's filing method - took me a total of three hours.
2. Sanded the blade with P100 through P1000 wet/dry sandpaper. I will go to higher grits and steel wool tomorrow.
3. Cleaned up the horn scales with steel wool.

The blade looks better than I expected, and the scales are in very good condition considering their age. But the razor definitely has a couple of issues:

1. The blade is narrower toward the heel, and
2. The tail is chipped

The hinge pin (which I measure to be 5/64 inch) and washers that I removed were made of brass. There were no washers on the inside of the scales. I have no idea if the hinge pin and washers were original.

Here are my questions:

1. How old is the razor?
2. Should I use 1/16 inch rod?
3. Would you use nickel silver or brass rod for this razor and why?
4. Same question for the washers?
5. Would you put washers on the inside of the scales?

Next up: the hole for the hinge pin.

Before:

 

[Rob72]

I have done a couple of Wostenholms.

The narrower-toward-the-heel is either normal, or we had 3 separate honers who ran these down the same way!

Take a Dremel & a grinding wheel and do a gentle radius on the tail.

I always put the bronze washers inside the scales, but that was certainly not always what the makers did, and I use 1/16 brass, but you could use nickel & have a subtle two tone effect.

As far as age, mid-late 1800s would be a reasonable guess.George Wostenholm razors

 

[Frank Shaves]

I finished cleaning up the blade. Not sure why, but these photos do not capture the blade's sheen - the camera on my phone is now outdated.

I spent some time looking at restores on the Internet, and considering the gold lettering on the scales, I am leaning toward brass pins and washers. I may first just attach the blade with stock brass washers and after I learn to do this cleanly then get some brass cup style or even beehive washers from Griffith Shaving.

I have read about people repairing holes in blades using what I assume is J-B Weld KwikWeld. Can anyone comment on the hole in this blade? Should I just leave it as is or should I consider repairing the hole?

Next up: removing the chips from the edge and honing a near wedge for the first time. I plan to use one layer of Super 88 tape.

 

[Gamma]

It is possible to fill the pivot hole and then re-drill to fit the pin more snugly. I have, literally, repinned over 100 old birds like this without feeling a need to improve on the original work though. It's just a matter of preference, there is no wrong/right way here. The blade got to this point in history like that, chances are it'll go another 150 yrs or more with the same design. But, for someone that is OCD about such things, a fill and drill or fitting a bit of tubing in there can relieve some anxiety. JB weld can do the job.

Note - if leaving as-is - always check the fit to be sure the blade is not hitting the wedge when it is as far forward as that oblong hole will allow.

I always add thrust washers at the pivot; even if they're not there when I remove the blade. They do minimize wear to the inside of the scales.

You may still have a ton of rotten steel / micropitting near the bevel/edge area, so bevel setting may take longer than expected. A layer of tape is not an issue and possibly helpful. That said - I'd check the existing bevel angle, then after i had a solid bevel set I'd check again. If the bevel is seriously obtuse, I might opt to reset without tape and possible thin the spine. I'd rather have a super-wide bevel at 17˚ than a skinny bevel at 21+˚. To check the angle now, you'll need to put it on a stone so you can get an accurate read on where the top of the spine-wear is if the bevel is ground to termination at the apex.

 

[Frank Shaves]

Thanks for that, @Gamma!

I had not thought about lying the blade on the stone to measure the hypotenuse. This method seems way more accurate than trying to lay a ruler from spine to blade edge.

 

[Gamma]

From the top of the spine wear to the apex - that is the only accurate measurement for that part of the equation. To get that measurement, you have to grind a fresh flat at the spine; you have no existing bevel to speak of, and you don't know how it was honed previously. The only accurate read will be from a fresh bevel set.
Using a caliper is advised. Checking at the toe, mid-point, and heel is also advised. Plug your numbers into the bevel angle calculator - click here

 

[Frank Shaves]

I calculate the angle with one layer of Super 88 to be about 18 degrees, so I am going to stick with the one layer. That said, I spent most of the afternoon trying to remove the chips and set the bevel. I started with my Chosera 1k then P600 wet/dry and eventually went to my cheapo 400 grit diamond plate to remove enough metal to remove the chips and there are still a couple of spots where the edge is still wavy.

The main section of the edge now cuts a cherry tomato, but the toe and heel need more attention. I just compared the shape of the edge on the GW to the edge of my new Wacker. Holy cow, now I understand why there is a learning curve to honing these old Sheffields. The good news is that I am on vacation tomorrow, so I plan to put my nose to the grindstone first thing tomorrow morning and try to focus on getting the blade for form a good seal that undercuts the water.

 

[Bevel]

Good progress being made here.
On the scales front, I bought a couple of metallic markers recently.
You can redo the scale markings with one of these, gold would suit better than silver, and re-sand to fix up any overfill.

 

[Frank Shaves]

After thinking way too hard, I found and watched this video by Keith:

Chip Removal and Bevel Setting on a Washita - YouTube

Once I started to just work the edge on my Chosera 1k, I began to make progress, and things took a turn for the better. Took me a while, but I set a nice bevel that slices tomato all the way from heel to toe, stropped on leather, popped my wife's very fine hair with ease, and enjoyed my first shave with a near wedge. I still need to order rods and washers.

What surprised me was how little rocking I needed to use to follow the curve of the edge. I was able to follow most of the curve by just adjusting pressure, and only had to lower and raise the heel and toe at the very ends of the edge.

If you look closely at the edge, you will see to very small spots where I did not completely remove the chipping. Rest assured that I did take the edge down to clean steel.

Thanks for the recommendation, @Bevel!

And I learned a ton from this project! The final product:

 

[Frank Shaves]

@Gamma, When you say thrust washers are you taking about metal or plastic/nylon?

 

[Gamma]

Brass

 

[Bevel]

A lot of people, including myself, hammer the inner washers flatter as they're a fraction of a mm too thick.
Whatever you use to peen will do. I use a dead flat jewelers block and the flat side of my peening hammer, about 5 decent wallops should do it. This will shrink the inner hole to the point the pin won't go through so have a 1/16 drill bit handy to resize the hole again.
This makes the surface area of the washers larger and so the peening doesn't need to be as tight while also making the inner washers less obvious which is aesthetically better in my opinion.