Well, I changed course a bit with this one! I CA finished the original Ebony scales and they seemed a little uninspired and plasticky. I ended up making a set from Cocobolo and Ebony.
What's on your work bench right now?
- Thread starter Luecke2326
- Start date
Found this J. Rogers in an antique shop. Figured I'd see if we could give it a bit of life back.
Decided to replace the black horn scales which had cracked on the backside with Blonde horn.
Blade and scales completed.
Decided to replace the black horn scales which had cracked on the backside with Blonde horn.
Blade and scales completed.
Some talk above regarding filling holes with CA glue on horn. I've not tried horn dust mixed with CA but the scales on this W&B had holes that I filled with straight CA glue. Not a great solution to front side of scale problems as the glue drys opaque white, but it's OK on the back. Also used it to "secure" a crack on the backside scale near the wedge as I prefer to keep things as original as possible.
Here are the scales with the glue
Scales now hand sanded and ready for a Neatsfoot oil bath. The blade had some light polishing, but I wanted to keep the patina, oh and the previous owner/seller tool some very heavy grit sandpaper to the face and back of the blade leaving very deep marks. If I had gotten those out I would have lost the blade etch which I wanted to keep.(you can see the grind marks if you zoom in)
Finished product
Here are the scales with the glue
Scales now hand sanded and ready for a Neatsfoot oil bath. The blade had some light polishing, but I wanted to keep the patina, oh and the previous owner/seller tool some very heavy grit sandpaper to the face and back of the blade leaving very deep marks. If I had gotten those out I would have lost the blade etch which I wanted to keep.(you can see the grind marks if you zoom in)
Finished product
I did a little touch-up on this one yesterday. Unpinned, cleaned, and repinned. Nothing big but it now won't make me cringe when I shave with it. It oly had a little patina and some rust in the pivot that cleaned right up.
Still need a trip across the stones.
Still need a trip across the stones.
I took this GEO STEPHENS apart. Cleaned and polished the scales. Then sanded and polished the blade the best I could by hand. Some devil spit on the backside was left as I didn't want to mess with the geometry of the blade. I went with a satin finish on the faces and polished the rest. Repinned with the original collars.
After my hands quit complaining I will work on straightening out the edge as a small chip is in the toe but other than that it's not too bad.
A nice big razor was added to my collection today.
After my hands quit complaining I will work on straightening out the edge as a small chip is in the toe but other than that it's not too bad.
A nice big razor was added to my collection today.
This Henckels 1389 1/2...haven't touched the blade. Cleaned up the scales and repaired a crack at the pivot.
I have a plan for the scales, but not tonight.
I have a plan for the scales, but not tonight.
Does anyone understand the root cause of the staining around the hinge pin hole in these scales and the best way to clean it up?
I have seen this before and assume it is the result of oil or rust permeating the horn. Soaking in neatsfoot oil and light sanding is usually effective for cleaning it up, but the stains on these scales is proving more difficult and I would like to avoid removing too much material.
Suggestions are welcome!
I have seen this before and assume it is the result of oil or rust permeating the horn. Soaking in neatsfoot oil and light sanding is usually effective for cleaning it up, but the stains on these scales is proving more difficult and I would like to avoid removing too much material.
Suggestions are welcome!
You may be right, @Bevel. I restored a similar razor one week ago that started off with about half as much streaking as this week's razor. Here is what the razor from last week looked like after some sanding. Since I posted the above photo of this week's razor, I have removed about half of the streaking using 240 and 400 grit sandpaper.
After a small misstep with a crack repair, I made brass liners for the pivot of these scales and swapped out the butterscotch ivory cell on this MK 3. I'm pretty happy with it.
Is that faux tortoise? If it is, and with the marks on that blade, you might want to keep and eye for gassing on the new blade.
You can feel gassing sooner than you can see it so run thumb and fore finger along the blade over the next week and if the blade starts to feel like 3000 grit sandpaper get the scales off it quick.
I dug this BK Co razor out of the to-do cup today and gave it a quick unpin, clean and polish then repin. 1.5 hours and ready for the hones.
A close-up of the marking hoping someone can help figure out anything about this one. I'm guessing American. Also a close-up of my pinning. After a few dozen razors its not too difficult. LOL.
BTW, I saved and reused the collars in inner washers. Next to no hone ware on this one. Didn't even have to work on the heal.
A close-up of the marking hoping someone can help figure out anything about this one. I'm guessing American. Also a close-up of my pinning. After a few dozen razors its not too difficult. LOL.
BTW, I saved and reused the collars in inner washers. Next to no hone ware on this one. Didn't even have to work on the heal.
I'll keep an eye on it. The old blade looks like it has stains more than pits, and they don't line up with the color variations in the scales. But I'll keep it quarantined just in case.
Having said that, I suspect they may be real. Hot pin barely sinks in and doesn't smoke, when I do it on the pair of cell scales I just took off, it sinks right in and smokes. One scale is thicker than the other, and there was a gouge in the back of one that looked suspiciously like a bug bite. I didn't really have enough sanding dust to test after I cleaned up, what was left on a piece of sandpaper didn't really want to burn, the paper wanted to burn before the dust, but it might have smelled like burnt hair before the sandpaper caught.
1 of 2 Gotta razors on tbe bench. This one is by far in better condition than the other. Not even sure it was ever honed before.
that’s a really elegant scale design!
So its been a rough few weeks on the restoration front. Been working on a really thrashed Greaves - old enough to not mention Schaef works, so likely early 1820s. I got the rust under control to some extent and then started working on some black horn scales in my spare time. After a few weeks of off and on work I finally finished, and discovered to my horror that in my effort to match the period scale design (working off of some Acier Fondu website photos) I’d made a set of scales that would leave the heel sticking out when closed! Very depressing. This afternoon I had a few spare hours and I thought to myself “Is there any way to get a quick win in terms of scales?” Without getting totally anachronistic of course (so no plastic!). Digging through my materials I decided to use some walnut 1/8” blanks - saves all the trouble with thinning a blank to the right thickness. Drew out a new shape, cut the blank in half and taped together, then cut it out. I have to say wood sands down so much faster than horn. Also once you get to 2k sand paper you are are as shiny as you are going to get. For a wedge, I abandoned the idea of my bleached bone (again issue is getting it to the right thickness) and grabbed a piece of Osage Orange which I’d earlier bandsawed to an uneven thickness, meaning it was already a bit wedge-shaped and close to the desired thickness. Then for a finish I went with my homemade wax compound (they weren’t using CA in 1820 England) and stacked up some washers to get an appropriate look. Done within 3 hours, including the time I spent on the afternoon dog walk. Not what I had originally been hoping for - but not a horrific hack job (at least by my standards) either. Now off to honing! 
I decided I hadn't made any scales in about a year and I had some blades and blanks so I guess I should give it a go.
Here they are cut out and shaped along with the blades that will go in them...
After a little rest I thinned them to 0.010, worked the wedges to the final thickness so that the blades sit right in the scales, Put two coats of CA on the insides to seal the wood, Sanded that flat and smooth, and Sanded all the scales to a final shape up to 1K grit. This morning I just finished putting a scend coating of Tru-oil on them for a finish. The first coat went on at midnight last night.
After another 8 to 10 coats of Tru-oil with sanding between each coat, they should be about ready. So now it's time to work on the blades. The littlest blade is warped so I will need to adjust the pinhole at the wedge end of the scales so that I can get the blade to center. This will be done in the final stages. Then I will need to touch up the wedge end of the scales to make it look right. This will take a few coating of finish before it will be complete but in the end, it will center correctly and look right. It just takes a bit more time and effort.
So now it's time to get out the sandpaper and polish and see how well these blades clean up.
BTW, This is Oak, Rosewood, and Sycamore.
Here they are cut out and shaped along with the blades that will go in them...
After a little rest I thinned them to 0.010, worked the wedges to the final thickness so that the blades sit right in the scales, Put two coats of CA on the insides to seal the wood, Sanded that flat and smooth, and Sanded all the scales to a final shape up to 1K grit. This morning I just finished putting a scend coating of Tru-oil on them for a finish. The first coat went on at midnight last night.
After another 8 to 10 coats of Tru-oil with sanding between each coat, they should be about ready. So now it's time to work on the blades. The littlest blade is warped so I will need to adjust the pinhole at the wedge end of the scales so that I can get the blade to center. This will be done in the final stages. Then I will need to touch up the wedge end of the scales to make it look right. This will take a few coating of finish before it will be complete but in the end, it will center correctly and look right. It just takes a bit more time and effort.
So now it's time to get out the sandpaper and polish and see how well these blades clean up.
BTW, This is Oak, Rosewood, and Sycamore.
3 hours later and...
Blades are cleaned and polished. Ready for scales when the time comes.
Blades are cleaned and polished. Ready for scales when the time comes.
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