Hallo everyone,
I hope that the more experienced of you can help me with a little advice on the SR pictured. I've searched the forums but not come up with a 100% solution as yet, so sorry if I'm asking repeated questions. I found this post especially interesting: A French razor from the 1700's (A PARIS CH? BREVETE) - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/a-french-razor-from-the-1700s-a-paris-ch-brevete.618819/
I was working late one night / early morning to get some stuff finished for the next day and then drank a couple of glases of red wine... I really shouldn't look on EBay in that state. Well, the result was that I took a fancy to what looked like an old SR with not very good scales from Valence, south of Thiers, and put a Euro 21 bid on it. A week later recieved a message that I'd won the auction and yesterday it arrived.
I removed the brown rust with a little brass brush (and scraped as much of it out of the pivot as possible - there is certainly more down there between the scales and the blade). Looks better than the online pictures led me to believe. Then I started removing the dirt from the horn scales and have started to change my mind completely. The scales are pretty brittle (shining light through them shows clearly that they are riddled with small cracks, i.e. completely dried out, see image) and have been a few chunks banged out of their edges. The rivets look like they are original. As you can see in the pictures, the scales are also pretty warped. The wedge looks to be made of lighter horn.
I now have more the feeling that I've aquired a little bit of history that I don't want to destroy. I'm no longer so keen on my original thoughts on just cleaning the blade and rescaling.
It would also be nice if someone knows about the brand "FREYDIER A VALENCE" or could suggest where I could look for info about the knife in general. An approximate dating would very much interest me. I've never heard of SR manufacturers from Valence before, so it could simply be a branding from a Thiers manufacturer...
Now to my questions. I'm not sure how to proceed, but do now want to keep the original scales and the rivets. As I've never touched horn scales before, I'd value your thoughts on the following possibilities:
1. Clean the inside of the scales as well as possible and soak the whole knife in neatsfoot oil for a few months to rehydrate the scales as well as possible, then finely sand and buff the outside of them. I've read many of your posts that this often helps with dried horn scales. This would probably be the easiest option, but has the downside that the oil in the pivot would probably make the blade flop around, which is doesn't do at present. The rivets have obviously been tightened a number of times over the years, so I think a further attempt may very well crack the scales.
2. As I want to keep the original rivets, I could drill a small hole into each one and use a very small diamond grinder to hollow the pin out and hopefully pull off the outside washers undamaged (as suggested here: Unpin a Razor - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/unpin-a-razor.404578/ ). I normally just file the old pins down and knock them out, so I've no experience with drilling them. Then I could heat-flatten the scales and glue a thin (horn) backing to each one to strengthen it (maybe with something like hide glue that could, theoretically, be taken off again) and re-assemble with new pins in the old washers. Has anyone done anything like this before and could advise me? Is is a good idea at all or just a silly thought? I read in another forum post that the sanded material could be mixed with glue to fill chips in the scales, so I could kill two birds with one stone. I assume that I'd have to glue everything together before applying any oil, or they would separate again.
3. Of my 50 or so SRs I think that only five or six didn't have broken scales when bought, since fewer bid on them and I really enjoy getting the blades into working order and making new scales. (Having said that, I still need a lot of practice, especially with the rivets.). This last option, also the one if I manage to break the scales, would be the easiest.
Any comments or other suggestions would be most welcome as would information about the SR.
Best regards, sorry if the post is somewhat long-winded, and thanks in advance
Les
I hope that the more experienced of you can help me with a little advice on the SR pictured. I've searched the forums but not come up with a 100% solution as yet, so sorry if I'm asking repeated questions. I found this post especially interesting: A French razor from the 1700's (A PARIS CH? BREVETE) - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/a-french-razor-from-the-1700s-a-paris-ch-brevete.618819/
I was working late one night / early morning to get some stuff finished for the next day and then drank a couple of glases of red wine... I really shouldn't look on EBay in that state. Well, the result was that I took a fancy to what looked like an old SR with not very good scales from Valence, south of Thiers, and put a Euro 21 bid on it. A week later recieved a message that I'd won the auction and yesterday it arrived.
I removed the brown rust with a little brass brush (and scraped as much of it out of the pivot as possible - there is certainly more down there between the scales and the blade). Looks better than the online pictures led me to believe. Then I started removing the dirt from the horn scales and have started to change my mind completely. The scales are pretty brittle (shining light through them shows clearly that they are riddled with small cracks, i.e. completely dried out, see image) and have been a few chunks banged out of their edges. The rivets look like they are original. As you can see in the pictures, the scales are also pretty warped. The wedge looks to be made of lighter horn.
I now have more the feeling that I've aquired a little bit of history that I don't want to destroy. I'm no longer so keen on my original thoughts on just cleaning the blade and rescaling.
It would also be nice if someone knows about the brand "FREYDIER A VALENCE" or could suggest where I could look for info about the knife in general. An approximate dating would very much interest me. I've never heard of SR manufacturers from Valence before, so it could simply be a branding from a Thiers manufacturer...
Now to my questions. I'm not sure how to proceed, but do now want to keep the original scales and the rivets. As I've never touched horn scales before, I'd value your thoughts on the following possibilities:
1. Clean the inside of the scales as well as possible and soak the whole knife in neatsfoot oil for a few months to rehydrate the scales as well as possible, then finely sand and buff the outside of them. I've read many of your posts that this often helps with dried horn scales. This would probably be the easiest option, but has the downside that the oil in the pivot would probably make the blade flop around, which is doesn't do at present. The rivets have obviously been tightened a number of times over the years, so I think a further attempt may very well crack the scales.
2. As I want to keep the original rivets, I could drill a small hole into each one and use a very small diamond grinder to hollow the pin out and hopefully pull off the outside washers undamaged (as suggested here: Unpin a Razor - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/unpin-a-razor.404578/ ). I normally just file the old pins down and knock them out, so I've no experience with drilling them. Then I could heat-flatten the scales and glue a thin (horn) backing to each one to strengthen it (maybe with something like hide glue that could, theoretically, be taken off again) and re-assemble with new pins in the old washers. Has anyone done anything like this before and could advise me? Is is a good idea at all or just a silly thought? I read in another forum post that the sanded material could be mixed with glue to fill chips in the scales, so I could kill two birds with one stone. I assume that I'd have to glue everything together before applying any oil, or they would separate again.
3. Of my 50 or so SRs I think that only five or six didn't have broken scales when bought, since fewer bid on them and I really enjoy getting the blades into working order and making new scales. (Having said that, I still need a lot of practice, especially with the rivets.). This last option, also the one if I manage to break the scales, would be the easiest.
Any comments or other suggestions would be most welcome as would information about the SR.
Best regards, sorry if the post is somewhat long-winded, and thanks in advance
Les
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