The "what is" and " how to" thread for the Rolls Razor

Hekes Yes! Master Sticky All The Way!

 

My E-bay Rolls arrived

Arrived with this afternoon's mail. 1950 Imperial and not bad at all. A little moldy, a little greasy but all fixable.

 

Strop, Hone and Blade: The 3 Big Risks on E-bay

These 3 parts are the final 3 required parts for a nominal Rolls and the best case for buying a Rolls from someplace where you can actually inspect the product.

The Rolls strop (picture 1) is English leather and nested in the bottom door of the frame. It normally consists of the leather and a pad glued to the bottom side. Very early Rolls strops were made from thicker leather and did not have the pad underneath. The padded strops are also formed or tooled with the stropping area raised from the sides. I’ve never decided if the change to the padded strop was a technical improvement or just a way to use thinner leather (cheaper?).

The important thing to look for in a strop (either with physical inspection or a picture on E-bay) is that it is not cut or gouged. The strop can be recovered from a pretty nasty condition but actual cuts and gouges should be a deal killer.

A rolls replacement strop can be made by cutting an appropriate shape from and existing straight strop or from appropriate leather from a harness shop or Tandy Leather.

The Rolls hone (picture 2) is a composite stone (man-made materials) nested in the top door of the frame. It’s pretty simple and trouble free as long as it isn’t stressed. It can break very easily and should be treated very carefully when using or restoring. If it’s broken, there is no recovery. You’re going to need to buy another Roll for its hone. There is an upside to the breakable hone. I think about half break from being dropped and the other half break from improper handle storage. A broken hone can sometimes lead to a NOS or a “very low mileage” Rolls going pretty cheap on E-bay. Just plan on getting a second Rolls for its good hone.

The Rolls Blade (picture 3) is piece of a straight razor blade, hollow ground and made form the finest Sheffield steel (sez so on the box)! That “finest Sheffield Steel” is high carbon steel which makes it soft enough to take an edge with the Rolls frame and that’s good but that same steel also rusts and stains like crazy so some care must be taken when maintaining a Rolls and shopping for one. The biggest blade issue when acquiring a Rolls is deep rust or “devil’s spit” (black area) on the cutting edge of the blade. Not terribly common as Rolls operating procedures are specifically designed to prevent it. It is a risk though so keep your eyes open. The blades haven’t changed much in the entire history of the Imperial and Viscount models (30s thru 50s). The blades in Picture 3 are a 1932, 1949, 1951, 1952 and “I don’t know”. They’re all the same except for the slight rounding of the edges of the spine necessary for the Collapsible handles on the 1930s model. Picture 4 shows the rounding on the 1932 blade compared to the 1949 blade next to it.

Question: How do you date a Rolls?

Answer: In most cases, the blade has the year of manufacture stamped on the back of it’s spine (picture 4) is a 1949 blade. But this is not always the case, replacement blades didn’t have a date (picture 5).

 

That's it for Rolls Basic Info. Next up: Restoring a Rolls!

We're going to go from picture 1 to 2 in an afternoon, with nothing but an old toothbrush and some baking soda, Eazy-Pezy! :happy102 (joke, love that 1st pic!)

 

What's the proper way to store the handle? I've seen some in each of the positions you've pictured above (under the rail and clamp end of the handle facing the blade), and others that have the handle clamped onto the end of the strop/hone handle.

 

The 2 different handle types really have 2 different methods of storage. The early handle (cursed collapsible) was made to fit in the case attached to the stropping handle (that’s why it collapses) (picture 1). The later 2 piece handle didn’t really fit on the stropping handle and unless stored perfectly, you ran a big risk of breaking the hone when you closed the case. Rolls solution was to provide a cutout in the gear rail which allowed the handle to be stored well away from the hone (picture 2).

In everyday use, I don’t even store the handle, I just set it on top.

 

Greg, this is a super cool thread Mang! Thank You!

I am following along with a Rolls I bought to send to ASD / Dmitry when we are done.

I bet the value of a used Rolls goes up ten fold just because of this thread!

 

Awesome Greg, thanks.

 

Shhh... quiet! :mad: :sleep025


Thank you Greg, very interesting information.

I have Rolls Razor Viscount in brown pouch, but the blade is from 1936...

 

I picked up three, hoping to get enough to make one good one and surprisingly all are in good to excellent conditon.

Some of the blades exibit a little very shallow rust/tarnish but I'm thinking a quick touch on my big hard felt polishing wheel(turning away from the edge) will clean them up quickly.

Unfortunately I have no instructions. Stroppig actiion seems to work fine, but if I install the hone nothing happens. How do you get it to hone, or is that done by hand?

 

Very possable. It's the downside of all the interchangability. I'm as guilty as the next guy of getting attached to a blade that really performs well and just carrying it from frame to frame. Your Viscount may have been an old user's second razor and he just brought over his old blade from his orginal '36 shaver.

The Rolls Viscount brings up the matching aspect of the 2 models (Imperial - Viscount). Imperials had nickeled brass stropping handles and blade guards. Viscounts had aluminum stropping handles and blade guards. This "theme" carried thru to the plastic extra blade case tops. So a quick look at the guard tells you where the blade goes.

 

What an odd thing to say! Your a member of the Shave Den. You have access to a whole raft of shaver instructions!

http://www.theshaveden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8827

Rolls is No. 14 in the Instructions wiki.

 

Thanks!

 

When I first saw this I thought 'oh no, another Rolls thread'. But, I gotta say you have nailed some important information in this one. Good job.

 

Greg, can you tell more about hone restoration?

 

The Clean-up: Phase 1 – Strop and Hone (step 1)

The basic supplies required are for phase 1 (picture 1)

1. Baking Soda
2. Small dish
3. Toothbrush
4. Toothpicks
5. Hand Dish Soap
6. Small screwdriver
7. Hair drier
8. Optional 400 grit sandpaper (may be required)

Mix up a paste from the baking soda and water. The paste should be slightly thinner than today’ s toothpaste. When you got that prepared, congratulations, you’ve just made your grandmother’s toothpaste. Next add several drops of hand dish soap to the paste and mix well. Set the paste aside.

Remove the strop leather and the honing stone form their doors. Remember which door is which. Removing the strop should be easy, just pry up the un-clamped end with your fingernail and pull out. Remove the hone from the same end with a toothpick if possible. If the picks fail move (extremely carefully) to the small screwdriver. The hone comes out the same way the strop does. Free the end and pull it out.

Place the strop and hone on a piece of paper towel or cloth towel. Scrub the hone frist with the past you made earlier and the toothbrush. Massive pressure isn't required but scrub away with this concoction. It cleans but is fairly harmless to leather and stone (picture 2). When you've finished with the hone, move on to the strop. Rinse and repeat as required to remove the grime, oil and old strop paste.

The final products should look something like this (picture 3) compared to what I got from E-bay (picture 4).

Set the strop aside for 24 hours to dry. If the strop looks like it's going to curl too much, put a book on it while it dries.

The hone should be warmed up with the hair dryer to speed drying and can be improved further with a light application of 400 grit or higher sandpaper if required after it drys.

 

Greg.....this is invaluable information dude. :thanks, seriously.

 

+90,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000................

 

The Clean-up: Phase 1 – Strop and Hone (step 2)

The basic supplies required are for phase 1 step 2 (picture 1)

1. Neatsfoot (or Neetsfoot) oil
2. Take your watch off. Trust me, lesson learned.

Neatsfoot oil is available at grocery stores, drug stores, Walmat, Target, just about anywhere. Look for it around the shoe stuff like polish or camping supplies etc..

What we’re doing here is replacing the oils that have evaporated out of the strop over the 50 yrs or so it sat unattended on a shelf somewhere. The Neatsfoot treatment shouldn’t be a regular occurrence as the leather will normally get replenished by the monthly application of strop paste which is a leather conditioner.

Once your strop has dried out from its bath, it’s time for it’s massage. After you’ve got you watch way out of the way, pour a nickel to quarter sized amount of neatsfoot oil on to your palm. Rub your hands together a couple of times and start rubbing in the oil into the strop, top and bottom. Be sure to bend the leather every which way working the oil into any dents in the leather as well as the edges if they seem harder or dryer that the rest of the leather. Keep this up for 15-20 mins. Best to do it while watching the tube as it’s kinda boring.

After the massage is over, just set it aside for a couple of hours. It should have darkened considerably (picture 2) After the 2 hours is up, re install the strop in its door and let it continue to absorb the oil overnight (picture 3).

 

I picked up a bottle of Neetsfoot oil at Modell's sporting goods.. in the baseball glove isle. Used for breaking in a new mitt. $2 for a bottle large enough to break in the gloves for the Met's for two seasons.