So I'm pretty new here still. I was turned on to wet shaving almost 2 months ago now and have been using a Parker SR1, which is a shavette type razor, to start with. I figured I may not actually find wet shelving enjoyable or worth my time and money, so I can start with that Parker and the Van Der Hagen Deluxe set up. Well, it turns out I'm here to stay!
Moving forward, I decided to buy a few razors on eBay. I'm pretty handy, so why not give it a try? One of the things we this Rubn razor with (I believe celluloid?) Scales that was is pretty nice condition. Great, this will be the first of four that I bought to get to working condition!
This Rubn was in decent condition. The edge didn't have rust though the blade had some minor pitting. I eventually found out that the pin attached to the tang was loose and the scales were not even. It was as if someone had previously taken the blade out and poorly put it back together. My first goal was to make new scales!
I ended up finding a piece of rosewood to use for my scales. I drew the shape of the originals to a paper, then traced that shape onto my wood and cut the two scales on a bandsaw. I immediately learned that it would've been smarter to glue the pieces together and cut them out all at once. Next time.
So I cut the pieces out and glued them to either side of a folded piece of paper using wood glue. I proceed to sand with a belt sander into the shape I wanted after clamping then for about an hour. I found that that most difficult part was evening out the two sides of scales to match up in thickness. I used a caliper to help me be accurate. Once I had that done, I broke out the 120, 220, 400, and 600 grit paper and went to town!
Here's the end result of all that work
I'm pretty pleased with this! Before drilling holes for the pins, I wanted to work on the blade a bit too clean it up and whatnot.
I started with 1000 grit paper to rub off the rust and gunk. That's pretty easy and quick, so I moved to 1500. Again, not bad. There are some markings that are pretty deep that came from before, so I decided to leave them. I didn't want to backtrack on my sanding.
I realized that the areas with pitting may have some rust that I couldn't see, so I took a Q-tip with CLR to those areas and brushed them out with an old toothbrush. I waited for an hour before returning to my work. The CLR seemed to cloud up the blade, but I didn't want to sand all over again, so I just started up with 2000 grit. The cloudiness came off and the blade really started shining up. After I finish dry sanding with 2000, I added some mineral oil to the blade and lightly sanded with 2000. I wiped it clean, added more oil, and sanded with 2500 grit paper. It was looking good! But I wanted to try a bit of the buffing wheel...
I took my blade to the wheel and decided to just carefully touch up with the white buffing compound. Everything was great, I kept the edges really sharp and clean, and suddenly the blade, catches and is slammed to the floor!!
Everything ended up fine, thank God! Nothing was chipped or cracked. Tough blade! I finished up. Much more carefully this time, and then rubbed off the black residue with some acetone. This melted my handles a bit, but hey, no big deal. I just made new ones!
Here's what I now have!
The blade is not completely blemish free, but I'm very happy with it! I'm going to send it somewhere to be honed professionally (not sure where, yet). Once I get it back, I'll take the blade out of the old scales, drill my pin holes in the new scales, polish the blade one last time with sons Mother's, finish the scales with some teak oil, pin it up, and have my first REAL straight razor!
Thanks for reading. Sorry for the lack of pictures throughout and overall length of the post. I didn't realize I wanted to post this up until close to the end of it! Let me know you're questions, comments, criticisms, and other advice! I'll be posting follow up pictures as this moves forward. Thanks!
Moving forward, I decided to buy a few razors on eBay. I'm pretty handy, so why not give it a try? One of the things we this Rubn razor with (I believe celluloid?) Scales that was is pretty nice condition. Great, this will be the first of four that I bought to get to working condition!
This Rubn was in decent condition. The edge didn't have rust though the blade had some minor pitting. I eventually found out that the pin attached to the tang was loose and the scales were not even. It was as if someone had previously taken the blade out and poorly put it back together. My first goal was to make new scales!
I ended up finding a piece of rosewood to use for my scales. I drew the shape of the originals to a paper, then traced that shape onto my wood and cut the two scales on a bandsaw. I immediately learned that it would've been smarter to glue the pieces together and cut them out all at once. Next time.
So I cut the pieces out and glued them to either side of a folded piece of paper using wood glue. I proceed to sand with a belt sander into the shape I wanted after clamping then for about an hour. I found that that most difficult part was evening out the two sides of scales to match up in thickness. I used a caliper to help me be accurate. Once I had that done, I broke out the 120, 220, 400, and 600 grit paper and went to town!
Here's the end result of all that work
I'm pretty pleased with this! Before drilling holes for the pins, I wanted to work on the blade a bit too clean it up and whatnot.
I started with 1000 grit paper to rub off the rust and gunk. That's pretty easy and quick, so I moved to 1500. Again, not bad. There are some markings that are pretty deep that came from before, so I decided to leave them. I didn't want to backtrack on my sanding.
I realized that the areas with pitting may have some rust that I couldn't see, so I took a Q-tip with CLR to those areas and brushed them out with an old toothbrush. I waited for an hour before returning to my work. The CLR seemed to cloud up the blade, but I didn't want to sand all over again, so I just started up with 2000 grit. The cloudiness came off and the blade really started shining up. After I finish dry sanding with 2000, I added some mineral oil to the blade and lightly sanded with 2000. I wiped it clean, added more oil, and sanded with 2500 grit paper. It was looking good! But I wanted to try a bit of the buffing wheel...
I took my blade to the wheel and decided to just carefully touch up with the white buffing compound. Everything was great, I kept the edges really sharp and clean, and suddenly the blade, catches and is slammed to the floor!!
Everything ended up fine, thank God! Nothing was chipped or cracked. Tough blade! I finished up. Much more carefully this time, and then rubbed off the black residue with some acetone. This melted my handles a bit, but hey, no big deal. I just made new ones!
Here's what I now have!
The blade is not completely blemish free, but I'm very happy with it! I'm going to send it somewhere to be honed professionally (not sure where, yet). Once I get it back, I'll take the blade out of the old scales, drill my pin holes in the new scales, polish the blade one last time with sons Mother's, finish the scales with some teak oil, pin it up, and have my first REAL straight razor!
Thanks for reading. Sorry for the lack of pictures throughout and overall length of the post. I didn't realize I wanted to post this up until close to the end of it! Let me know you're questions, comments, criticisms, and other advice! I'll be posting follow up pictures as this moves forward. Thanks!
