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Restoring RSO To Something Useful

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
Before I knew anything about straight razors, I purchased my first for USD 3 from China. Shortly thereafter I joined B&B only to learn that my pride and joy was an RSO and useless for shaving. It was a 5/8 blade of stainless steel with a 2.5mm thick spine.

RSO Profile.jpg
I put that SR away and kept it as a reminder of my folly. I then bought a real SR and started to learn SR shaving skills.

One of my girlfriends is a beautician working here in Cebu. A few days ago she came across my RSO and asked me about it. I told her and then she had an idea. Could I modify it as she thought that it would be cool to use it in her work for reshaping eyebrows etc. I told her that I would give it a go.

With a spine thickness of only 2.5mm, I realised that I would have to decrease the blade size to about a 3/8 to obtain a reasonable bevel angle. After much grinding and some very course honing, I got the blade down to this:

RSO Modified.jpg
I was also going to modify the stabiliser/shoulder arrangement, however my girl decided that she wanted it kept the way it was so at to provide some protection for her fingers from the edge. She also explained to me that she would normally only be using the edge from the toe to about 2/3 of the edge length.

Now all I have to do is set a proper bevel on the beast. I will then give the razor to my girlfriend and teach her some basic honing skills. That should keep her occupied for a while.

If all this works out, my girl will be the first beautician in Cebu using a "real" straight razor in her work.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
Setting the bevel using the burr method was not easy. The blade was now almost a full wedge and I had never tried to set a bevel on a wedge before. Although I tried hard not to, I eventually decided to tape the spine. This increased the effective spine thickness be 0.40mm (0.016"). With this, I was able to set a reasonably good bevel.

As I had used tape to set the bevel, I was not about trying to teach Maricel to hone with a taped spine so I continued myself. From the bevel set, I progressed up the few whetstones that I have, ending on my grandfather's finishing stone.

I decided that I needed to finish this edge in a manner that Maricel could maintain in her beauty parlour. Rather than then go to my pasted balsa strops, I pulled out my 50mm (2") cheap Chinese cow hide strop. This strop is suede on one side and course leather on he other. I applied a thin coating of stropping paste to the course leather side and gave the edge a few hundred passes until it just got to tree topping. Then a hundred passes on the suede side to finish it up.

RSO 38 Edge.jpg

I was happy with the final edge. That bevel is 0.12mm (0.005") wide.

Maricel came to visit me last night so I showed her my handy-work. She was very impressed. I then spent about an hour teaching her how to strop the blade (pasted and suede sides) and explained to her what was happening with each.

This morning I again checked Maricel's stropping technique. She had learnt and remembered. With her new "real" SR and the pasted strop, Maricel set off for work. I will learn how things went when she contacts me later today.
 
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