The relative urgency of rusty pivots (and can you cheat with evaporust?)

[str8six]

I got into straight razors because I bought waterstones for my kitchen knives, found them surprisingly enjoyable, and wanted more things to sharpen.

So now I have several unremarkable razors from ebay that I've acquired to refine my honing skills. I disinfect with scrubbing bubbles and use a light mineral oil to protect the pivot. Some, like the first one (that Slash correctly estimated would become a favourite) colour that oil a bit red rather than black like most of them. So there's at least some rust in there. The bad kind.

Provided I continue to keep the pivot dry, oiled, and store the razor away from significant moisture (I don't keep it in the bathroom and I'm looking into a getting a sealed box with dessicant packs before the sometimes humid summer), will this significantly degrade if I take a year or three to get around to rescaling it? I'm not super-interested in scales. I've gotten a woodworker I know intrigued by straights and am hoping that he takes up the scale end of things but it might be a bit yet.

Alternatively, will evaporust be terrible for all/most scale materials? If I soak the pivot in it, rinse it off thoroughly, then dry with a hair dryer and maybe leave it in some rice for a week before re-applying a liberal amount of oil, well, that'd do it right? Except for the part where I don't get through that plan with my scales intact? Would bone or horn fare better than plastic? Worse?

 

[eKretz]

I would take the razor apart and fix it up right. After you take the pins out and take the razor apart you can either sand the rust away and polish or convert it to black oxide rather than red. To convert, scrub the rusty area with some steel wool until there's nothing loose remaining. Then stick the blade in some boiling water for 5 minutes. The rust will turn black and be pretty much inert after that. If your other razors aren't rusting you probably don't need to worry about desiccants and such - you just need to kill that active rust. I keep my razors in a bathroom closet just sitting on a shelf and don't have any rust issues.

 

[str8six]

Well, that's my eventual intent for sure and thanks for the neat boiling trick, will remember that one. But since I don't have a peening hammer, drill press, or even a file, and I have someone in mind to delegate that whole area of expertise to, I was wondering if there's much of a hurry or, with appropriate care, another year or two won't significantly alter its condition?

I guess in a pinch I could maybe very carefully sand off the pin with the atoma 400 I use for lapping and source some of those microfasteners but that seems like hassles. Like you say, best to fix it up right.

 

[eKretz]

You don't really need any special tools, it's really pretty simple. You won't need a drill press at all unless you're planning on making new scales. Just take apart and reassemble - the old holes are already there. Perhaps you could ask the "someone you have in mind" to file the pins for you if you're too nervous.

Myself, I prefer to use a rotary grinder (like a Dremel) with a ball grinder bit, and take the pins down that way. It's easy to see if you're in the center of the pin that way and being a point contact you have a little wiggle room before you would hit the scale.

Re-peening new pins is pretty easy too - if you are worried, drill a couple pieces of scrap wood and practice with those. Remember not to hit hard - many gentle hits are better than a few hard ones. Spend a few minutes taking your time and tapping. Get the pins tight enough but not too tight so you don't crack the scales. I use a little baby ball peen hammer that I polished the ball on up to about 8,000 grit. A shiny hammer will produce a shiny peen.

As far as waiting a few years and hoping it won't get worse: Why? It won't take long to do it right, and you'll have learned something new. You can do it.

 

[str8six]

All tools are special tools when you're a programmer in an urban rental with no garage to store them in because why have a car in the city? I don't have a laundry machine let alone a Dremel. It's less that I'm nervous about damaging my practice razors and more that I'm not really interested and don't want to spend the time gathering supplies, choosing tools that I won't use often nor finding a place to store them. I'm concerned for the environment and feel a responsibility to not buy anything that isn't of high quality and an obligation to find homes for everything I'm not using.

And so if it's not going to get much worse, then I'd soon as wait until it's convenient to delegate. Since it seems quite possible that it won't get worse on that timescale if treated carefully, I asked here because I'm sure many have a fair intuition about the situation and can lend some perspective.

 

[*stefan*]

If honing first then rescaling it is easy to mess up the edge, bumping the edge into something, even the scales when re-scaling. Or cutting oneself. That’s why rescaling/restoring first then honing is to prefer.

If honing first tape on some paper like in the picture might help. It will protect the edge and guide the blade.
Where I live there will not be corrosion on steel indoor unless direct contact with water or being stored in bathroom.

 

[Scarry Knight]

If you want to just clean the pivot pin and hole out without immediate disassembly, Ballistol works very well. Compressed computer air can be used to force it into the pivot, and then to remove residual moisture. Your rice bag is a good idea too. You can feel Ballistol or aerosol Fluid Film effervescing and acting to dissipate the water when you rub it in with your fingers. Even the moisture in your skin can be felt bubbling up and lifting your fingertips slightly off the blade.

I bet you could find something around the home to use in place of a ball peen hammer. A spoon, a 1/4” brass rod or steel punch and chunk of wood, butt end of a knife handle (metal pommel), etc.-or hit harbor freight, junk sale, goodwill store, lots of places to find something inexpensively.

I recently got a vintage razor that while snug at receipt, after a few uses and cleanings showed to have a sloppy pivot pin hole. I was coming here to post a question about how to handle the tightening the hogged out hole. With each use and subsequent cleaning it still exudes some gunk. Presumably polishing compound and some removed corrosion. It has .03” or about .75 mm play toe to heel at the pivot pin. Some of that may be pin wear. But the hole in the tang is clearly going to show wear judging by the material washing out. I expect it can be either peened with a center punch on the tang in a surrounding pattern around the hole, or sleeved, if not redrilled and a larger dia. pin used. I may or may not re-use the scales it has. One has a small chip.

 

[Gamma]

Evaporust is supposed to be ok with plastics. Plain mineral oil will impede or stop rust from progressing though. Works well actually. I've never seen a pivot rust out to where the razor is unusable, so it's probably ok to procrastinate until you get to fixing them correctly.

 

[str8six]

That's very reassuring, thanks for the peace of mind.

 

[Doc226]

You really shouldn't get water in the scales or pivot pin when shaving, sometimes it happen but it should be the exception not the rule.

No, a razor won't be ruined by rust in the pivot/tang area but the markings will be lost.

 

[Gamma]

That's very reassuring, thanks for the peace of mind.

You're welcome.

 

[stamasd]

Just one suggestion to add, if you want to keep your razors (or anything else) in a very dry environment without using disposable silicagel packs, look into using an Eva-Dry rechargeable drying pack, they don't cost much and come in different sizes. It still uses moisture-absorbing beads, but once they're saturated you can plug the pack into a standard outlet and the built-in heater warms it up and restores the beads to a state where they will absorb moisture again. I use several of these packs to keep my 3D printer filament dry, in airtight plastic storage bins.

 

[str8six]

@stamasd thanks for the tip. After looking into it, turns out that all silica gel can be reused by heating (eg. in oven or microwave) and you can get the color changing stuff quite inexpensively on aliexpress. Also saw mention that for some scale materials (bone, horn, maybe wood) this might not be the best idea as they may suffer after prolonged exposure to very dry environments.

 

[stamasd]

Yes all silica gel is reusable, the Eva-Dry packs are just very convenient to use. You can tell at a glance if they're still absorbing or need to be plugged in gor recharge. One caveat is that they changed indicayor colors about 2 years aho. For the older packs blue=dry and pink=wet. The newer packs light orange=dry and blue=wet. Can get confusing when you use a mix of older and newer packs. I marked all of my new packs with permanent marker so I can easily tell which ones have the wrong colors.