I purchased this well-used ’69 Super 109 Adjustable back in mid-March from an antique store (it was owned by the seller’s father since new)—it was dirty, caked with hardened soap and had a bad case of handle drop. I could tell that the handle seemed pretty brittle, so I didn’t want to push it too far when I re-crimped it. Re-crimping alleviated the handle drop to a point, but it was still loose when open and no amount of lubricant (mineral oil, 3-in-1 or WD-40) helped to keep it from binding or getting the last quarter turn in to lock. After my first shave last week, the TTO knob froze/jammed; necessitating a firmer grip using a towel. A little torque and the handle sheared clear apart at the crimp ring area leaving jagged edges on both pieces. The ragged edges kept the TTO knob from locking down and threw any adjustability out the window as the gap tolerances were dependent upon where the orphaned piece below the crimp sat when tightened. Figuring it was toast, I decided to part it out and I put the good doors from it onto a Lady Gillette and transplanted those to a black handled SS. Once done, the razor looked pitiful lying there without any doors, and I felt bad for the previous owner’s daughter who didn’t throw it out, but felt it was something of her father’s that she wanted to pass on. Feeling like a cross between the Patron Saint of Lost and Broken Razors, Dr. FrankenRazor, and Oscar Goldman from The Six Million Dollar Man, ” I grabbed a file thinking “it’s a Black Beauty, but barely alive. I can rebuild it, and if all goes wrong a large hammer to hide the evidence, but it could be a better razor than before… better, smoother, faster!” Okay, my first thought was just to shorten the handle, with no idea if it would ever work again. Once the jagged edges of both the handle and orphaned ring below the crimp were filed smooth, the TTO function worked; sort of. With about 2-3mm of material missing, the handle drop was very pronounced and in the full-open position, I could push the T-bar and doors (from the donor SS—a little rough and pitted) up and clear of the base plate. With the TTO in the closed position the handle wouldn’t tighten down enough for any adjustment to work. Not wanting to travel to a hardware store on a Sunday, much less during a pandemic, I guesstimated the amount of gap to be about the thickness of 12 gauge wire. Figuring “what the hell,” I cut and stripped about an inch of 12-gauge copper wire and wrapped it around the handle shaft above the TTO knob, and trimmed and crimped it with a pair of needle-nosed pliers (the edges were rough w/plier marks). I’m not sure I said “No way!” aloud, but in the full-open position the T-bar and doors stayed locked into the base plate (w/negligible handle drop), and when closed, the adjustment plate engaged and the quarter turn to lock came back. I filed the edges of the copper wire smooth, cleaned the filings out, adjusted the gap/straightened the safety bar, lubricated and shaved with it Monday morning. The shave was above and beyond my first shave which seemed harsh with a lot of blade feel (likely a combination of bent safety bar, over clocking and broken crimp that threw off the specs). I considered taking the wire off to use as a template for a more professional looking ring and placing the wire between the orphaned handle piece and the handle in hopes of correcting the handle drop, but part of me thinks that I caught lightning in a bottle and it will never be better than it is right now. So with that, I’m going to just celebrate it in all of its ugliness and put it into the rotation, but what to call it? I can’t call it a Black Beauty because it’s not much of either, so do I call it “Big Ugly,” “Ugly Betty,” “Dead Razor Shaving (Dr. S),” “The Shaving Dead,” “Steve Austin,” or the best that B&B members can come up with?
