It's been a long time coming, but I've finally finished a few firsts at once. My first full restoration, my first set of scales, my first time pinning a razor and my first time shaving with a razor fully restored by me. I'd like to send a HUGE thanks to Maxi (from SRP) for his patience, guidance, shop time and beer. Truly a great mentor and a good friend and I very much appreciate all he's done for me and all he's taught me. Anyway, here are my two first complete restorations:
W&B Barber's Use 7/8
This blade came to me as an Ebay hope & pray. The original scales were borderline salvageable, but they had some pretty big cracks in them and didn't survive unpinning. Luckily, I had been working with bocote and had a nice set of scales ready to go which fit this razor perfectly. I salvaged the original lead wedge for these, as well. The blade had some pretty heavy pitting in areas, but I managed to buff a lot of it out. Being a hollow grind, I didn't want to take off too much metal and I also wanted to leave some of the history intact. I think it's a nice satin finish that shows this blade's character. I started with 80 grit on the wheel, then went to 150, 220, 320, 400 by hand and then back to 600 on the wheel. After that, I just polished it with some Maas. The scales are finished with hand-rubbed Tung oil which was then buffed on the wheel.
Before:
After:
W&B 6/8 Barber's Notch:
This one was quite banged up. It looks like someone took a grinder to the etching, as there was the faintest hint of the "Celebrated" etching on the blade. It also had a fair amount of pitting on the back side, which required a fair amount of time on the buffer and also hand-sanding. In the end, I am happy with removing a lot of the abuse this blade took, as well as bringing the scales back to life. They spent approximately 5 full days in Neatsfoot oil, then were sanded by hand from 220 up to 2500, then a micromesh progression up to 12k. The scales are tending to peel a bit, so I decided to just leave them as they were at that point, as any further sanding would have removed too much material. I am also quite proud with how the pinning turned out on this one, as it was my first time pinning a razor (pivot only).
Before
Bottom
After
Thanks for looking!
W&B Barber's Use 7/8
This blade came to me as an Ebay hope & pray. The original scales were borderline salvageable, but they had some pretty big cracks in them and didn't survive unpinning. Luckily, I had been working with bocote and had a nice set of scales ready to go which fit this razor perfectly. I salvaged the original lead wedge for these, as well. The blade had some pretty heavy pitting in areas, but I managed to buff a lot of it out. Being a hollow grind, I didn't want to take off too much metal and I also wanted to leave some of the history intact. I think it's a nice satin finish that shows this blade's character. I started with 80 grit on the wheel, then went to 150, 220, 320, 400 by hand and then back to 600 on the wheel. After that, I just polished it with some Maas. The scales are finished with hand-rubbed Tung oil which was then buffed on the wheel.
Before:
After:
W&B 6/8 Barber's Notch:
This one was quite banged up. It looks like someone took a grinder to the etching, as there was the faintest hint of the "Celebrated" etching on the blade. It also had a fair amount of pitting on the back side, which required a fair amount of time on the buffer and also hand-sanding. In the end, I am happy with removing a lot of the abuse this blade took, as well as bringing the scales back to life. They spent approximately 5 full days in Neatsfoot oil, then were sanded by hand from 220 up to 2500, then a micromesh progression up to 12k. The scales are tending to peel a bit, so I decided to just leave them as they were at that point, as any further sanding would have removed too much material. I am also quite proud with how the pinning turned out on this one, as it was my first time pinning a razor (pivot only).
Before
Bottom
After
Thanks for looking!
