Any senior members opening this thread can move on now. I'll not be saying anything they don't already know and nearly all of it I learned from reading their previous posts. This is really for some of the other new straight shavers interested in taking an old, unloved razor from an antique store or off of ebay and making it look like something they might have paid real money for.
This razor is marked F.W. Engels on one side and Warren Velvet Edge on the other. I bought it because the Engels brand seems to have a good reputation, I live in a town called Warrenton and I like red velvet cake. You may have better reasons for your purchases, but I'm not that evolved.
The razor has bluing on the tang and that was something I didn't want to mess with. I like the gun type bluing very much. The dark tang leading up to a shiny blade gives it that desirable Steve Jobs in Black Turtleneck look that drives the girls and technology pundits crazy (shout out to Walt Mossberg here). This simplified and shortened the work tremendously. Below will follow a series of pics in the razors progress and the grit associated with that progress. One of the members here, forgive me for I forget to which of the fine gentleman I owe this tip, suggested alternating scratches with each grit. You might be able to see that this is the advice I followed in the pics below. The reason for doing it this way is because the process of polishing is simply the process of removing large scratches with a series of smaller ones until one reaches a point that they are undetectable or nearly undetectable. By alternating their direction, it's much, much easier to see that the old scratches are gone, replaced by new ones.
Here is the razor in it's young, pre-Apple Steve Jobs state when he was hacking the phone system with the Woz and not showering:
View attachment 307427
View attachment 307428
During this process, I did as little as I could to touch the tang or turtleneck. I didn't know how to clean it up without removing the bluing, so I just left it alone. The first step was using 220 grit to remove the most obvious oxidation. I would have used 150 grit, but I was all out and when I started at 5am this morning, those slug a beds who work at the Home Depot down the street were either in the shower or still sleeping. We make do with what we have so 220 grit it was. I've done a couple of these now and one of the things that sanding has in common with bevel setting is the importance of the first large grits. This is where most of your time will be spent. The total sanding time for this blade was a little over three hours and the first 45 minutes was at 220. Don't rush the first few heavy grits because you cannot fix that with the later finer ones. After the 220, came the 400 and this is what it looked like after the 400. (Apologies for not having a pic of the 220. I spaced out on sandpaper fumes).
Steve is now trying to roll out the first Mac. He's presentable, but not polished and occasionally not even bathed.
View attachment 307420Scratches are horizontal
The next step up is the 600 grit. By the time I'd gotten to this point, it was nearly two hours. Things went faster after finishing this.
View attachment 307425Scratches are Vertical
Here's the pic after the 800 grit. It's hard to tell the difference in my lousy pics, but on earlier razors, I'd stopped at 800. It gives the razor a kind of brushed stainless or brushed aluminum look that I also rather like and besides, my fingers hurt. This time, I was as determined to finish as Steve Jobs was to get the Lisa out into the market place. You can see his effort below and he's polished enough at this point not to embarrass himself or the company in front of the Wall Street Analysts:
View attachment 307426Scratches are horizontal again...and so on and so on. You get the pattern by now.
Continued below.
This razor is marked F.W. Engels on one side and Warren Velvet Edge on the other. I bought it because the Engels brand seems to have a good reputation, I live in a town called Warrenton and I like red velvet cake. You may have better reasons for your purchases, but I'm not that evolved.
The razor has bluing on the tang and that was something I didn't want to mess with. I like the gun type bluing very much. The dark tang leading up to a shiny blade gives it that desirable Steve Jobs in Black Turtleneck look that drives the girls and technology pundits crazy (shout out to Walt Mossberg here). This simplified and shortened the work tremendously. Below will follow a series of pics in the razors progress and the grit associated with that progress. One of the members here, forgive me for I forget to which of the fine gentleman I owe this tip, suggested alternating scratches with each grit. You might be able to see that this is the advice I followed in the pics below. The reason for doing it this way is because the process of polishing is simply the process of removing large scratches with a series of smaller ones until one reaches a point that they are undetectable or nearly undetectable. By alternating their direction, it's much, much easier to see that the old scratches are gone, replaced by new ones.
Here is the razor in it's young, pre-Apple Steve Jobs state when he was hacking the phone system with the Woz and not showering:
View attachment 307427
View attachment 307428
During this process, I did as little as I could to touch the tang or turtleneck. I didn't know how to clean it up without removing the bluing, so I just left it alone. The first step was using 220 grit to remove the most obvious oxidation. I would have used 150 grit, but I was all out and when I started at 5am this morning, those slug a beds who work at the Home Depot down the street were either in the shower or still sleeping. We make do with what we have so 220 grit it was. I've done a couple of these now and one of the things that sanding has in common with bevel setting is the importance of the first large grits. This is where most of your time will be spent. The total sanding time for this blade was a little over three hours and the first 45 minutes was at 220. Don't rush the first few heavy grits because you cannot fix that with the later finer ones. After the 220, came the 400 and this is what it looked like after the 400. (Apologies for not having a pic of the 220. I spaced out on sandpaper fumes).
Steve is now trying to roll out the first Mac. He's presentable, but not polished and occasionally not even bathed.
View attachment 307420Scratches are horizontal
The next step up is the 600 grit. By the time I'd gotten to this point, it was nearly two hours. Things went faster after finishing this.
View attachment 307425Scratches are Vertical
Here's the pic after the 800 grit. It's hard to tell the difference in my lousy pics, but on earlier razors, I'd stopped at 800. It gives the razor a kind of brushed stainless or brushed aluminum look that I also rather like and besides, my fingers hurt. This time, I was as determined to finish as Steve Jobs was to get the Lisa out into the market place. You can see his effort below and he's polished enough at this point not to embarrass himself or the company in front of the Wall Street Analysts:
View attachment 307426Scratches are horizontal again...and so on and so on. You get the pattern by now.
Continued below.
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