What's new

Horn or tort

Looking for more experiance. Sands simmilar to horn, very translucent, dust smells like hair when burned, few dark areas go through. Edges have chips, small cracks on engraved one around both holes. Working on restoration of the english I-XL straight razor any info on scales or razor is helpful.
20241028_015221.jpg
20241028_015238.jpg
20241028_015231.jpg
20241028_015259.jpg
20241028_015243.jpg
20241028_015325.jpg
20241028_015316.jpg
20241028_015945.jpg
20241028_015940.jpg
 
Yep, definitely horn. If you search in this forum for "hornoxy" you'll find some good discussion about dealing with cracks, bug bites, etc. CA glue plus baking soda works well, epoxy mixed with sanding dust from the horn you're using can work. I've only ever used CA but like I said, lots of discussion on the subject.
 
Yup, horn. Those scales are totally restorable and all the chips and cracks can be repaired, filled with horn sanding dust and CA glue for an invisible repair. Sanded to 1-2k and polished with any good metal polish will make them shine like new. To collect dust sand with 400-600 paper.

First clean the scales well with a good degreaser and tooth brush, let dry. Sand over a clean cookie sheet, to collect all the dust, sand the inside of the scales, if you need more dust. You want clean dust to match the scales.

Use a CA kicker to speed up drying, you can put on several layers in minutes, horn dust will dry the exact same color as the scales. Baking soda dries white, but is stronger if needed. For those scales you don’t need it.

Note that the heel half of the edge has no bevel touching the stone, and grind marks on the tang and stabilizer, lack of spine wear over the heel half of the razor. The stabilizer has kept the heel off the stone.

The heel needs reprofiling a simple 5 minute fix, that likely caused the razor to be “put away” and left unused.
 
Wosty I XL - I excel.
That engraving was used by a few makers.
This was probably made at Washington Works. Can't see the full engraving, someone obliterated part of it with sanding or a grinder or something. If Washington Works, it's from after the late 1840s. Would need a better look into the tail and engraving to guess more than that.
Blade looks to be in nice shape considering, the edge is still sitting way off the shoulder, so it wasn't sharpened a lot. Can't see the toe very well but it sorta seems like it's in good shape with a mostly uncompromised barber's notch.
Wosty used good steel and used it well. So long as there isn't a lot of rotten steel to cut though it'll hone easily and shave well.
The engraving on the horn scales was common back in those days.
The crack at the wedge end of the engraved scale is not 'small'.
Has a lot of delamination at the pivot end.
 
This one came out very nice. Virtualy no pitting in the original blade. Will most likly polish up just a bit more. Handle is stabilized, and the crack while still visible is repaired. Updated to copper pins the engraving as i can make out with a lupe says celibrated I-XL razor but the specific works is missing all engraving
20241030_231819.jpg
20241030_231833.jpg
20241030_231902.jpg
20241030_231918.jpg
 
Top Bottom