Choices, choices, choices….

I know nothing about straight razors and even less about constructing one. I just wanted to say it is great to see you back in action again.

 

Thanks! I'm not back 100%, but enough to start getting into additional trouble.

 

Slow Joe I believe we are all happy to see Kevin getting better and creating more eye candy.

 

Some more refinement today on the scales. Two sets began to warp so I've clamped them under pressure until I'm ready to deal with that issue.

Buffer Time: Took the old Wade & Butcher wedge to the buffers with the greaseless compounds.
Here's the condition of the blade as acquired:

I did some light sanding and then the blade spent about 2 days in the tumbler to remove some of the surface gunk. Here's how it looked post-tumbler:


On the buffing wheels, I started with 85 grit on the compounds > 180 >400 >600 > emery.
Here is the blade, before & after, just off the buffer. No polishing nor buffing to finish yet…



I may take the blade back & finish it with stainless compound. I want some gloss, but not 'mirror-like.'
Other two blades and more fun with scales to come….

 

Nice clean and polish...what is stainless compound?

 

Stainless Buffing Compound.
Brings a nice luster to the blades.

 

Very nice, you sure know what your doing.

 

Ha, thanks!…more like trial & error—and plenty of the latter!

 

More progress today: Two sets of scales are moving along fine— the black 'feathered' scales for the Wostenholm (next the Wosty blade up front) have been sanded to a final shape but I will next chamfer the edges. Next to those are the black horn scales I plan to use with the Turner 'barber's notch' blade (left). The scales have been sanded to the final shape and now are just being refined (finer grits to come). The 'notch' blade is just off the buffer. It still has more work to go there, but it is cleaning up nicely. The blade had some extensively, deep pitting along the spine, near the nose (see bottom pic below), and most of it has been cleaned up.
The Wade & Butcher wedge (back right) is ready to go, but I still have the honey horn scales clamped down to hopefully fallen them out the curve they developed. They may need a dunk in hot water & back to the press to get them to cooperate.

 

So after all of this work how is your wrist holding up?

 

I'm treating it as a sort of PT (physical therapy)—some use, repeatedly, but with plenty of breaks to not overdo it. Only certain motions give me painful reminders to back off.
As I said before, I'm a terrible patient….

 

More sanding & polishing of scales:
I was able to do some more finishing work on at least on set of the 3 scales.
The buffalo horn I had chamfered the edges and began hand-sanding with 220 grit > 320 grit; making sure to remove the scratches along the way.
I began dry-sanding then adding some wd-40 to soften the marks as I continued to sand. Shown below at the 320 grit stage.


I continued up the grit scale, wet-sanding with the wd-40 as I got above 800 (400>600>800>1000>1200>1500).
Next I gave the scales a hand polish with rubbing compound and took them to the buffing wheel I followed this with both green (ChromOx) and red (jewelers) compound, plus a final buffing.
I'll got back once the entire razor is assembled for final buffing. The finish now is looking very good with uniform gloss.
These scales are for the Turner 'Barber's Notch' blade (shown in the bottom pic below); still being worked on….

 

Talk about pretty, shiny objects... Magnificent!

 

Thanks, Mike! I rarely go 'über-shiny' on scales, especially those made of horn, but for variety's sake, since I'm doing two other horn scales concurrently, I though I'd gloss up at least one set!

 

Really nice job, stunning.

 

SUPER nice job on the scales Kevin! Looking forward to seeing the finished product (as you are, I imagine)!

 

Thanks! It's a slow process due to the limited time I'm 'allowed' to work with my hands (Doc's orders & my wife is enforcing them!)...

 

Before long, folks are going to be clamoring for BaconLord Brand straight razors of their very own, at this rate.

 

Hello Kevin looks like a lot of people really enjoy your work...I know I would save my pennies to get a shaver restored by you along with some others on here...just saying

 

Really nice Kevin