I just recently purchased a straight at a flea market and the blade is in great shape, I think. I will still plan on cleaning it and getting it honed, but the handle has a small chip out of it, and the pin is a little loose. I'm wondering if it can be fixed, or should I say have a new handle put on it, but I don't know how much I should be expecting to pay for something like that.
Is there a way to fix this or can it be fixed?
- Thread starter civilengineer
- Start date
Firstly, pics always help, its kinda hard to see the extent of the damage without. As far as repining/getting new scales, you can buy pre made scales and pinning supplies for around $25-$30. My suggestion would be to send it out for restoration if you really have attachment to it. Otherwise you're looking at needing some cutters, a small peening hammer, appropriately sized rod and washers, a rotary tool, and a solid surface to peen the pins on. I'm sure there will be others with a great deal more knowledge on the subject who will be by shortly. Good luck!
- Thread starter
- #3
Yeah, sorry, I apologize, I made the post from my phone not realizing I couldn't attach images. I have provided them here now.
![$IMAG0570[1].jpg](https://xfdata.badgerandblade.com/attachments/161/161665-f8874106f6bcb5e58229999eba8b0401.jpg "$IMAG0570[1].jpg")
![$IMAG0571[1].jpg](https://xfdata.badgerandblade.com/attachments/161/161666-64f5ad55aae2e203d86d0a9f4c8957cd.jpg "$IMAG0571[1].jpg")
As far as scales are concerned, I would go with a rescale. That is only if you're really attached to the razor. It seems to have some pretty serious uneven wear especially towards the toe. My suggestion would to be scrap it, and spend the money you intend to invest on a Whipped Dog straight, or one from the BST. It's your call in the end, thats just my suggestion.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
That razor can easily be rescaled. Get some thin brass sheet and some 1/16" brass rod from your local hobby shop. Cut the brass in 1/4" wide strips. Or just one strip, really. Drill holes a little over 1/4" apart down the centerline of the strip. Cut it halfway between the holes. Stack the resulting squares on some of the rod, squeeze them tight together, and wrap wire around the rod to keep them squeezed. Saturate the wire winding with epoxy. File the stack of squares into a stack of round washers. Chuck the works into a drill and turn it down to the proper size with sandpaper which will also get them perfectly round and washer-like. There. Washers. Or you can order them (size 0) from www.microfasteners.com pretty cheap. You can also get size 0 brass bolts and nuts instead of brass rod for pins. Or you can look for even better, Nickel/Silver rod that is meant for pinning razors.
For scales, you can DIY them, too. Acrylic or Lexan sheet, 1/8" thick or slightly thinner. The acrylic clipboards at Office Depot will work. Use your old scale for a template. Use the original wedge. You could use wood or some other material but acrylic is cheap and easy to work with.
To pin, leave a little over a washer thickness of pin extra when you cut it. Tape the scales to prevent damage. Electrical tape works fine. Lay the razor on a very heavy steel object like a large vise, an anvil, piece of railroad track, whatever. Look underneath. You should see daylight between anvil and scales, and only the end of the pin touching. Whack the top end with a big spoon. Whack it maybe 20 whacks, turn it over, and whack the other end. You are trying to peen the end down into a head. Keep whacking and flipping until the parts are all firmly squeezed together.
The brass bolts you can simply secure with a nut, cut off the bolt end, and peen slightly or use Loctite. Or use the bolt like a pin. Round and flatten the bolt head. Cut the bolt to length and peen just like brass or nickel/silver rod. You only need to peen the one end, of course.
For scales, you can DIY them, too. Acrylic or Lexan sheet, 1/8" thick or slightly thinner. The acrylic clipboards at Office Depot will work. Use your old scale for a template. Use the original wedge. You could use wood or some other material but acrylic is cheap and easy to work with.
To pin, leave a little over a washer thickness of pin extra when you cut it. Tape the scales to prevent damage. Electrical tape works fine. Lay the razor on a very heavy steel object like a large vise, an anvil, piece of railroad track, whatever. Look underneath. You should see daylight between anvil and scales, and only the end of the pin touching. Whack the top end with a big spoon. Whack it maybe 20 whacks, turn it over, and whack the other end. You are trying to peen the end down into a head. Keep whacking and flipping until the parts are all firmly squeezed together.
The brass bolts you can simply secure with a nut, cut off the bolt end, and peen slightly or use Loctite. Or use the bolt like a pin. Round and flatten the bolt head. Cut the bolt to length and peen just like brass or nickel/silver rod. You only need to peen the one end, of course.
I thank you also for the info slash, I've got a collection of your (and some other) tips I'm saving in a folder.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Repairing that edge is going to call for a lot of work. With that much effort already to be expended on fixing the edge, while it is out of scales you probably ought to completely sand and polish the blade. Start at around 320 or 400 grit unless you see pitting and scratches that require coarser paper. Progress through 600, 1000, 1500, and 2k grits. The finer grits you can get from most auto parts places like AutoZone if your local hardware store does not have them. The finer grits are often used in auto body and paint repairs. Then hit the razor with diamond paste. 3u, 1u, .5u, and .1u progression and if you allow each grit to completely do its job of obliterating all scratches left by the previous coarser grit, you will end up with a deep mirror finish. This finish will not only look great but will help to resist rust.
For more emphasis I will repeat my first sentence. Repairing that edge is going to call for a lot of work. If you do it right you will end up with a good shaver. Done wrong and you will only be frustrated in your efforts to hone and use it. This is the point where you decide if it is even worth the effort or not. For your first restore, I say it is worth it simply for the immersion into the process, from which you will learn a lot.
Notice the radical taper at the toe of the razor. This is from the tang end of the blade lifting up, which of course puts more pressure on the toe into the hone. Usually what has happened is that the previous honer had a habit of letting the shoulder of the razor ride up on the hone. Sometimes it is just a poorly controlled and executed honing stroke and since this is a shoulderless razor the latter is probably the case. The honer used a rolling stroke and placed emphasis on the toe instead of simply honing flat. Also notice the frown centered about 1/3 the way out. That is from using x strokes and rocking the blade downward across the edge of the stone. Sometimes this is abetted by using a narrow stone in an effort to hone the growing frown, which of course will sometimes work to give you an edge but makes the frown worse.
Two major problems... the frown and the tapered toe. The most important and simplest to address is the frown. Make sure your honing surface is wide enough to accommodate the whole edge. I strongly suggest getting a 4x12 polished marble edge tile from Home Depot. These are usually flat enough to do the job. Ceramic tiles are never flat enough so don't bother. A very thick piece of glass the same size will also work. Should be 1/2" thick or so, to prevent bending and flexing. You will need a sharpie marker. Also some sandpaper in coarse grits beginning with 80 or 100 grit. You will need some spray adhesive to fix the sandpaper to your lapping plate. Bend and tear the sandpaper sheet into thirds, longways, so you have three pieces roughly 2-3/4" wide and 11-1/2" long. Apply a VERY light spray of the adhesive to the back of the paper, and stick it on the lapping plate right next to the edge, keeping it tight as you apply it. It must be perfectly smooth with not the slightest wrinkle or bubble. What you have done is constructed an extremely flat, very coarse hone wide enough for the whole edge and long enough for a good consistent stroke. This is of immeasurable help in reconstructing an edge.
You should also take some measurements. You will need some accurate means of measurement... not a ruler, but a dial caliper, vernier scale, something like that. Select a point along the spine and always measure from that point. Notice the bevel flat on the side of the spine where the spine wears on the hone. At your measuring point measure from the back edge of the flat to the razor's edge. Also measure the total thickness of the spine at that point. These two measurements comprise a very important ratio. From these measurements you can construct an isocelese triangle which can be split into two right triangles, and as you know, having the length of any two legs of a right triangle allows you to calculate the acute angle of the triangle, which will be half of the apex angle of the original isocelese triangle, which is your BEVEL ANGLE. Ideally this bevel angle is between 16-1/2 degrees and a little over 17 degrees but some variance from that is still quite usable. You don't absolutely have to know the bevel angle but it is a really good idea. If you simply assume (oh how I hate that word and that concept!) that the current bevel angle is okay, and it usually is, then your goal will be to keep it the same. The ratio of your measurements should remain the same as you remove metal from the edge and spine. You can control this by placing more pressure at edge or spine as required.
Now that you know what you are doing, simply HONE on your homemade ultracoarse, very flat, very big hone. NO ROLLING MOTION. That's how the last guy wrecked the edge. Only a slight x-stroke. Keep the edge on the hone. You could breadknife but this way keeps the spine and edge in alignment since both are wearing on the same plane. Go half laps in sets of 50. Periodically, paint the edge with the sharpie marker and give it one or two strokes on the hone just to check your progress. The hone will take the ink from the high parts and it will remain on the low parts. When you have the frown straightened out, and your ratio is still nearly the same, you can decide what to do about the nose.
There are several possible treatments here. The simplest is to just keep on honing. If you notice, removing steel to fix the frown also reduced the tapered length of the toe. You can just keep on going and eventually your straight edge will run all the way out to the end of the blade. Or you can accept the toe that will never be sharp, and that works for a very short one but not so good for anything over 1/4" or so. You can hone it out so that the toe taper is merely reduced to your satisfaction. You can hone by rolling up to get the toe, but remember that is how the last guy made such a mess of the blade. You can make it a shorty, by cutting or grinding off the last 1/2" or so of the blade. Or any combination of these methods. My preference would be to take off a little less than 1/2" from the nose and then flat honing until the developed edge runs all the way out to the end, then muting the point and profiling the nose the way I want it.
Now this is extremely coarse grit, and leaves deep scratches. These scratches must be removed completely by the next grit, which of course leaves its own scratches, which are in turn removed by the next grit which leaves its own still finer scratches, ad nauseum. So even after you finish with the 80 grit, you are still stuck with removing a bit more steel as you run up through the grits. So, STOP grinding on the coarse stuff JUST BEFORE you are actually finished, and start progressing upward. At some point early in the progression you will probably have to stop and just keep rubbing until your edge is completely straight. I suggest around 400 grit for that. Upward from 400 you are not removing such tremendous amounts of steel but it is still a fast enough grit to gitter done. The coarse grits below the 400 simply made the process go quicker. You could have started with 400 but that would certainly not have been any fun!
Once you are up to 2k grit, make sure that your bevel is set properly. Do your set of half laps on one side, lets say the show side down. Now check and see if there is a burr on the back side of the edge. This is a tiny catch of displaced steel, like a hook or a sharp folded micro edge that you can feel with your fingertip. It can be extremely small and hard to detect. The edge will feel different on one side than the other. You need to keep going until you feel a burr along the entire edge. Count those half laps used to get it. When you got it, flip the blade and do the same number of half laps on the back side, and you should then feel the burr on the show side. When you got it, hone it off using regular alternating laps, maybe 50 or so, and light pressure. Up to now, you should have been using fairly heavy to moderate pressure. Heavier with the coarse grits where the emphasis is on removing steel. Now you must begin using light pressure. Hone off that burr completely. Strop the blade and give it another couple dozen laps on the 2k. Your bevel is set. Try shaving arm hair. It should shave arm hair fairly easily.
Oh no! Look what you did to your spine! OMG, the poor poor spine! Oh Spine, how could I do this to you? <weeping, wailing, lamentation, rending of clothes, pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth> Yes, the bevel flat on the spine is even more pronounced now. You had to remove steel from the spine in proportion to the steel you removed from the edge, in order to maintain a good bevel angle. The function of the razor is to not look like it was never used and never honed. The function of the razor is to accept and hold a good edge, and shave your face with no drama or issues. The bevel on the spine is utterly of no consequence. This is a tool, and a WORKING tool. But if you don't like it, at this point you can sand the edges away from that bevel flat and give it a nice rounded profile again. Start with about 320 grit and when you have the shape you want, progress upward and re-polish. Be careful because your bevel is set and while the edge will not shave your face so good, it can still cut your hand to the bone.
From here, put the razor in the scales, switch to your normal honing method and carry on to the finish. Strop, and shave.
For more emphasis I will repeat my first sentence. Repairing that edge is going to call for a lot of work. If you do it right you will end up with a good shaver. Done wrong and you will only be frustrated in your efforts to hone and use it. This is the point where you decide if it is even worth the effort or not. For your first restore, I say it is worth it simply for the immersion into the process, from which you will learn a lot.
Notice the radical taper at the toe of the razor. This is from the tang end of the blade lifting up, which of course puts more pressure on the toe into the hone. Usually what has happened is that the previous honer had a habit of letting the shoulder of the razor ride up on the hone. Sometimes it is just a poorly controlled and executed honing stroke and since this is a shoulderless razor the latter is probably the case. The honer used a rolling stroke and placed emphasis on the toe instead of simply honing flat. Also notice the frown centered about 1/3 the way out. That is from using x strokes and rocking the blade downward across the edge of the stone. Sometimes this is abetted by using a narrow stone in an effort to hone the growing frown, which of course will sometimes work to give you an edge but makes the frown worse.
Two major problems... the frown and the tapered toe. The most important and simplest to address is the frown. Make sure your honing surface is wide enough to accommodate the whole edge. I strongly suggest getting a 4x12 polished marble edge tile from Home Depot. These are usually flat enough to do the job. Ceramic tiles are never flat enough so don't bother. A very thick piece of glass the same size will also work. Should be 1/2" thick or so, to prevent bending and flexing. You will need a sharpie marker. Also some sandpaper in coarse grits beginning with 80 or 100 grit. You will need some spray adhesive to fix the sandpaper to your lapping plate. Bend and tear the sandpaper sheet into thirds, longways, so you have three pieces roughly 2-3/4" wide and 11-1/2" long. Apply a VERY light spray of the adhesive to the back of the paper, and stick it on the lapping plate right next to the edge, keeping it tight as you apply it. It must be perfectly smooth with not the slightest wrinkle or bubble. What you have done is constructed an extremely flat, very coarse hone wide enough for the whole edge and long enough for a good consistent stroke. This is of immeasurable help in reconstructing an edge.
You should also take some measurements. You will need some accurate means of measurement... not a ruler, but a dial caliper, vernier scale, something like that. Select a point along the spine and always measure from that point. Notice the bevel flat on the side of the spine where the spine wears on the hone. At your measuring point measure from the back edge of the flat to the razor's edge. Also measure the total thickness of the spine at that point. These two measurements comprise a very important ratio. From these measurements you can construct an isocelese triangle which can be split into two right triangles, and as you know, having the length of any two legs of a right triangle allows you to calculate the acute angle of the triangle, which will be half of the apex angle of the original isocelese triangle, which is your BEVEL ANGLE. Ideally this bevel angle is between 16-1/2 degrees and a little over 17 degrees but some variance from that is still quite usable. You don't absolutely have to know the bevel angle but it is a really good idea. If you simply assume (oh how I hate that word and that concept!) that the current bevel angle is okay, and it usually is, then your goal will be to keep it the same. The ratio of your measurements should remain the same as you remove metal from the edge and spine. You can control this by placing more pressure at edge or spine as required.
Now that you know what you are doing, simply HONE on your homemade ultracoarse, very flat, very big hone. NO ROLLING MOTION. That's how the last guy wrecked the edge. Only a slight x-stroke. Keep the edge on the hone. You could breadknife but this way keeps the spine and edge in alignment since both are wearing on the same plane. Go half laps in sets of 50. Periodically, paint the edge with the sharpie marker and give it one or two strokes on the hone just to check your progress. The hone will take the ink from the high parts and it will remain on the low parts. When you have the frown straightened out, and your ratio is still nearly the same, you can decide what to do about the nose.
There are several possible treatments here. The simplest is to just keep on honing. If you notice, removing steel to fix the frown also reduced the tapered length of the toe. You can just keep on going and eventually your straight edge will run all the way out to the end of the blade. Or you can accept the toe that will never be sharp, and that works for a very short one but not so good for anything over 1/4" or so. You can hone it out so that the toe taper is merely reduced to your satisfaction. You can hone by rolling up to get the toe, but remember that is how the last guy made such a mess of the blade. You can make it a shorty, by cutting or grinding off the last 1/2" or so of the blade. Or any combination of these methods. My preference would be to take off a little less than 1/2" from the nose and then flat honing until the developed edge runs all the way out to the end, then muting the point and profiling the nose the way I want it.
Now this is extremely coarse grit, and leaves deep scratches. These scratches must be removed completely by the next grit, which of course leaves its own scratches, which are in turn removed by the next grit which leaves its own still finer scratches, ad nauseum. So even after you finish with the 80 grit, you are still stuck with removing a bit more steel as you run up through the grits. So, STOP grinding on the coarse stuff JUST BEFORE you are actually finished, and start progressing upward. At some point early in the progression you will probably have to stop and just keep rubbing until your edge is completely straight. I suggest around 400 grit for that. Upward from 400 you are not removing such tremendous amounts of steel but it is still a fast enough grit to gitter done. The coarse grits below the 400 simply made the process go quicker. You could have started with 400 but that would certainly not have been any fun!
Once you are up to 2k grit, make sure that your bevel is set properly. Do your set of half laps on one side, lets say the show side down. Now check and see if there is a burr on the back side of the edge. This is a tiny catch of displaced steel, like a hook or a sharp folded micro edge that you can feel with your fingertip. It can be extremely small and hard to detect. The edge will feel different on one side than the other. You need to keep going until you feel a burr along the entire edge. Count those half laps used to get it. When you got it, flip the blade and do the same number of half laps on the back side, and you should then feel the burr on the show side. When you got it, hone it off using regular alternating laps, maybe 50 or so, and light pressure. Up to now, you should have been using fairly heavy to moderate pressure. Heavier with the coarse grits where the emphasis is on removing steel. Now you must begin using light pressure. Hone off that burr completely. Strop the blade and give it another couple dozen laps on the 2k. Your bevel is set. Try shaving arm hair. It should shave arm hair fairly easily.
Oh no! Look what you did to your spine! OMG, the poor poor spine! Oh Spine, how could I do this to you? <weeping, wailing, lamentation, rending of clothes, pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth> Yes, the bevel flat on the spine is even more pronounced now. You had to remove steel from the spine in proportion to the steel you removed from the edge, in order to maintain a good bevel angle. The function of the razor is to not look like it was never used and never honed. The function of the razor is to accept and hold a good edge, and shave your face with no drama or issues. The bevel on the spine is utterly of no consequence. This is a tool, and a WORKING tool. But if you don't like it, at this point you can sand the edges away from that bevel flat and give it a nice rounded profile again. Start with about 320 grit and when you have the shape you want, progress upward and re-polish. Be careful because your bevel is set and while the edge will not shave your face so good, it can still cut your hand to the bone.
From here, put the razor in the scales, switch to your normal honing method and carry on to the finish. Strop, and shave.
