My brain is working here... A "red tip" stripped down then re-plated in black nickel with a white tip...
That's a good looking razor, and I love the color. I would like to get a couple replated, but I don't think I'll be springing for that price anytime soon. On my monitor this one picture looks like the plating on the top has little pits in it. Is it just the picture?
No, it's not pits. It's very fine, very mi-nute scratches that was in the underlying copper. I have wondered about it myself. I was under the impression that it would all be polished out but I'm not a metal-works person so I don't know.. I had actually planned on calling them yesterday and inquiring about the scratches but never got around to it.
I'm not a metal person either, but it still looks good! From what I've heard, preparation is critical to the final finish. I also imagine that the thickness of the coatings make a difference. Just like building up coats of paint on a car. In car and motorcycle parts I've seen perfect finishes come back and not so perfect finishes, but still look good. My guess is that yours looks good enough for putting in your rotation even though it might not be factory perfect. With the price they charged you to refinish, I think you would be perfectly justified to question the surface imperfections. On the other hand, if you're satisfied, that's all that counts! Like I said before, it still L@@KS good to me.
Wow, that does look really good. If I can ever save up the money, I have a razor I think I'd like to have that done to. May have to get the info from you at some point on it. How is the feel/texture? I know the handle is textured, but I wonder about how smooth the finish is? Definitely marking this thread in my favorites
I just looked at it again and it's actually not scratches. I think it was just wash residue. I rubbed my thumb across it and it came right off and it looks all glassy smooth now. The finish is very smooth. I can't feel any imperfections anywhere. The best part about it is the screw knob and how smoothly it screws together. It's like night and day. I do know it's quadruple plated.. 2 coats of bright nickel and 2 coats of black nickel. I'm looking forward to using it for the first time in its new plate sometime today. Next up will be a 1934 Aristocrat. Still trying to decide on which metal to use for the re-plate of it and am considering doing a 2-tone thing with it where the handle is black nickel while the head and TTO knob is bright nickel or rhodium. And also getting the gold plated case re-plated too.
Now, that's an idea, I'll have to play with some photo imaging, see if I may like mine black nickel razor with a regular chrome knob...hmmmm. Is there any price difference between black chrome and black nickel?
I don't know. I got mine done at Reliable Electro Plating in Massachusetts and I don't see anywhere that they offer chrome of any kind. The only metals they plate with, according to their web site, are Gold, Silver, Rhodium, Bright Nickel, Black Nickel, Watts Nickel (Dull) and Copper.
I love my 2 vintage restored brushes... a "HardRight" 'black and butterscotch' color with TGN 20mm Finest badger hair knot and a "Fuller" 'black and cream' Jody, that is interesting about the HardRight as I have one of those in a travel size and never heard anyone mention that brush before. It looks just like the Gillette and came with a Gillette Travel set in one of the silver tubes. Do you know anything about them?
The HardRight I was referencing is much different. My HardRight on left, my Fuller on right: My HardRight: Bottom of my Fuller: On the bottom of my HardRight, it says: 2 HAPCO HANDLE
crazy thought....wonder if we could get a group discount on plating if we had several razors going for the same finish?
There is another plater in Rhode Island who does plate in chrome -- but I don't recommend them since they are not very easy to work with. And are a much bigger shop than Reliable. If interested, I could figure out who it was that I had a job done at.
Doubtful. The price is really not very high & there is work and materials that are used. I don't think you should make that into much of an objective. Better just to get more work over to Reliable at their regular prices.
Yesterday, I was finally able to access the hard drives on my old broken down PC. As a result, I was able to find a bunch of old pictures of different razors within my collection over the years, and I am now able to go through the slow process of updating my old threads that have long since lost their pictures due to dead links. This is the first thread I'm updating. Pictures are now available, before and after, in this thread, in the original #2 and #3 reply above. I sure do miss this beautiful black nickel New Standard. Pictures don't do it any justice. The razor was absolutely beautiful.