Straight Razor Repair and Restore

[JAWilliams]

Ok thought I would share my project with everyone. I got these straight razors very cheap. There are reasons for this, most of them are in very bad shape and some are in fair shape.

The first pic is a group shot.

Now you can see why they went so cheap.

What I am going to do is remove the scales. Now there is a couple of ways to do this. One is using a dremel tool. If you are wanting to save the scale I would not suggest this unless you are very confident in your grinding. You will pass over this the pin until it come loose.

The other way it to take a 1/16" drill bit and drip it out.

Once you have gotten all the scales off it is time to look and see what needs to be done. Just a couple of shots.

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Now here is the part that might suprise some of you. I take and polish these razors. The reason for this is I will find more with it polish to mirror or right at mirror. The problems stand out. and I can see who made it.

From inspecting these I have found alot of pitting and rust stains. Some of these might not be able to be saved. But I will finish these out because it will give me the practice and I can still display them.

 

[JAWilliams]

So from here we can go two different ways. We will go with the hand sanding right now. I started off with a 220 grit then went to 320, 400 and finally 600. I didn' get all the pitting out. some was too deep and I would have taken too much off of the razor. So after this I grabbed good old "Mothers mag and aluminum polish" and went to work.

Not bad, so now to pick some scales out. I am going to go with stabilized quilted maple. This will wait till I have a couple of more done and I have to get washers and pins.

Oh and yes that is the name of the Razor, "HO-MADE".

 

[HELLGAP]

Most of the top razor restoration people use the wet sanding compound . The stuff that you apply to a buffing wheel, 220 and 400 are the most common and will really make sanding 10 times easier. Hand sanding youll find takes a long time and really doesnt get all the pits out but its a learning curve well all found the hard way first lol kellyw

 

[JAWilliams]

Kelly you are right, but I wanted to show a couple of ways to do it. Just like with making a knife with files and then with a grinder. Yes the hand sanding takes longer and might not get out all of the pitting. Later on I will show with the buffing wheels and greaseless buffing compounds. Thanks for pointing this out.

James

 

[Billy Helton]

Cool looks good so far

 

[JAWilliams]

OK the pit was deep near the edge but it came out. If it hadn't it would have been a nick when they go to hone it. I can grind the edge down past this point but it would take away from the width of the razor. Picture of the pit near edge.

Picture of it after hand sanding. I started off with 150,220,320,400 and 600. Still has alot of work left.

 

[J. Neilson]

Wow, you are one patient dude James! Great restoration work and a great project. I just wish I had come up with the name "Ho-Made" first. LOL!!!