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From 1k wet and dry, most any good metal polish will shine them up with just a paper towel. I use 3m Marine Metal polish or Maas. Or buff with Green Stainless Compound and sewn wheel. Finish on a loose wheel and White compound.

Will not harm the pins, will shine them up also. Clean around the pins with a toothbrush and a shot of any good degreaser, Simple Green or Windex.

Buff with a natural unbleached paper towel to a high sheen.

Nice work.
 
Both Gotta 120's. Black is G10, white acrylic.
Honed last night, but I'm yet to polish the blades. Any suggestions for how to do this with all that etching?

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Last month I wrote in the acquisition thread about getting two razors from my father’s SO that formerly belonged to her grandfather. Since he had been born in 1890, I estimated the age as 1920 (+/- a decade) in my Straight Razor Acquisition note. Since then I did a little more research and based on the company logo both the Henry Sears & Son and A. F. Seeberger & Co likely date to 1890 +/- a decade, so 30 years older than originally thought. So perhaps the original purchaser was her great-grandfather, not her grandfather.

After a month of soaking in WD40 I finally some time on my last vacation day to try to clean them up. Nothing major, just sandpaper from 240-3000 on the metal and 000, 0000 and Flitz on the scales.

Before and after below. The A.F. Seeberger & Co Nonpareil was in pretty good shape (the blade anyways) and I only used W/D wrapped around a wine cork to try to avoid damage to the etching on the blade. I did use Flitz on the unetched blade of the Henry Sears & Son “Gentleman’s Razor”, which gave a bit more shine. Neither blade looks perfect but as @Gamma mentions in one of his YouTube videos, restoration is never really done, because you can always go back later and do some further work! :)

Still need to hone, perhaps next weekend. I just downloaded work e-mail from the past 2 weeks, looks like I will be pretty busy this week.
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Hi @Frank Shaves,
I think they both get you to the same destination, the soak substitutes some time for elbow grease. In this case I knew it would take a while to get around to working on this, letting it soak while I waited meant less effort once I got around to doing the work.

I mostly used 3-in-1 oil to do the actual sanding, but that is simply because my spray bottle of WD40 tends to cause a lot of collateral mess on my desktop.
 
I have been making my wedges to float without the use of any glue and shaping them at the end is taking too long, so I have hatched a new plan.

I had prepped two pieces of horn to make replacement scales for a John Heiffor. First, I deconstructed what I am calling the nothing sandwich.

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Then a constructed a new sandwich containing one layer of filler wood concatenated with camel bone for the wedge. I used paint stirring sticks I bought at the Depot.

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Here is the wood filler and camel bone after being attached to the first piece of horn with carpet tape - filler side up.

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Same thing with the horn side up.

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After attaching the second piece of horn to the filler.

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After a little clean-up on the belt sander the sandwich is complete.

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Next steps are to trace the scale pattern, drill two holes and shape. It may be a week or two before I finish but will be fun to see if this works, is more accurate and saves time.
 
I have been making my wedges to float without the use of any glue and shaping them at the end is taking too long, so I have hatched a new plan.

I had prepped two pieces of horn to make replacement scales for a John Heiffor. First, I deconstructed what I am calling the nothing sandwich.

View attachment 1391164

Then a constructed a new sandwich containing one layer of filler wood concatenated with camel bone for the wedge. I used paint stirring sticks I bought at the Depot.

View attachment 1391168

Here is the wood filler and camel bone after being attached to the first piece of horn with carpet tape - filler side up.

View attachment 1391170

Same thing with the horn side up.

View attachment 1391171

After attaching the second piece of horn to the filler.

View attachment 1391173

After a little clean-up on the belt sander the sandwich is complete.

View attachment 1391176

Next steps are to trace the scale pattern, drill two holes and shape. It may be a week or two before I finish but will be fun to see if this works, is more accurate and saves time.


The only problem is that your not making the wedge more a spacer, so it won't bow the scales outward might be worth looking at a wedge sooner than a spacer.
 
The only problem is that your not making the wedge more a spacer, so it won't bow the scales outward might be worth looking at a wedge sooner than a spacer.

I forgot to add that after I shape the scales, I plan to remove, thin and taper the wedge. I have thought about whether this will or will not require me to reshape the perimeter of the wedge and I think the answer is no, but time will tell. If I fail, I can always fallback to my previous method.
 
Picked up a nice looking vintage J.A.Henckels 6/8 off the "Bay" this morning for a song. No pictures yet but I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it. The last restoration that I did was probably 6 or 7 years ago. I'm not much into scale replacement so, hopefully this one is pinned correctly/snugly without any damage.

The pictures indicated that everything looks solid. The edge is straight and the blade is untarnished with no indications of overheating due to haphazard rookie polishing. Of course the J.A.Henckels Twin Works is stainless so there's that.

Maybe I'll send it out for new scales if I can get a nice edge on it. Looking forward to getting back into honing again.
 
It will not take much to remove the chipping from the heel if you just want to remove a minimum of steel.

You have two choices reshape the heel, which can look out of balance if too much is removed or reshape the edge to match the spine, which will remove a bit more width, but can make a more pleasant, even smile.

Take some time to load the photo into a photo editor and play with options using black paint to see which profile looks best.

You can also make a cardboard template of the blade, (great if you want the edge to match the spine smile) then make corrections on poster board or 3X5 card and cut out the shape. You can then trace the template on to the blade with black sharpie and see exactly what the blade will look like without removing any steel.

In short have a plan before removing steel. Google, “Make Me Smile straight razor” for a step-by-step photo tutorial.

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It will not take much to remove the chipping from the heel if you just want to remove a minimum of steel.

You have two choices reshape the heel, which can look out of balance if too much is removed or reshape the edge to match the spine, which will remove a bit more width, but can make a more pleasant, even smile.

Take some time to load the photo into a photo editor and play with options using black paint to see which profile looks best.

You can also make a cardboard template of the blade, (great if you want the edge to match the spine smile) then make corrections on poster board or 3X5 card and cut out the shape. You can then trace the template on to the blade with black sharpie and see exactly what the blade will look like without removing any steel.

In short have a plan before removing steel. Google, “Make Me Smile straight razor” for a step-by-step photo tutorial.

View attachment 1400834

That looks pleasant and fitting to the blade, and as you say removes the chip in the heel.
 
Yes, but there does appear to be some chipping near the toe and in the middle, can’t tell if that is a shadow or chipping, so making the smile match the spine might be a good option.

A cardboard template will show you All your options, before you remove any steel and allow you to remove the minimum… and make it look good.

Make your mistakes, if any, on cardboard or with sharpie ink, not on steel.
 

timwcic

"Look what I found"
It will not take much to remove the chipping from the heel if you just want to remove a minimum of steel.

You have two choices reshape the heel, which can look out of balance if too much is removed or reshape the edge to match the spine, which will remove a bit more width, but can make a more pleasant, even smile.

Take some time to load the photo into a photo editor and play with options using black paint to see which profile looks best.

You can also make a cardboard template of the blade, (great if you want the edge to match the spine smile) then make corrections on poster board or 3X5 card and cut out the shape. You can then trace the template on to the blade with black sharpie and see exactly what the blade will look like without removing any steel.

In short have a plan before removing steel. Google, “Make Me Smile straight razor” for a step-by-step photo tutorial.

View attachment 1400834

Thanks for the input. I am thinking in the same direction. There are chips all along the entire edge but no rust or crumbling steel that I can make out. Blade lose should be minimal, hoping for no more than a 1/16” in width. It will still be one inch, gave or take and still have its smile

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