Darwin Hollow Ground Safety Razor

I bought this Darwin Razor a week ago. It was in decent shape, so it was an easy refurb.

I started off by honing the blades. One blade was in really good shape except for a small chip on one corner. The other blade had vry small chips along the entire edge. Long story short I was able to get both blades shave ready. I found that the steel on these was a lot harder than the normal Sheffield steel. Being this hard they should hold an edge a good long time. I finished both blades on my Translucent Arkansas stone.

I also cleaned the case up. As it is a nice chrome finish. A little elbow grease and it is almost as good as new.

After getting the blades and case in order. The next step was to replace the 2 pieces of leather that make uo the honing and stropping surfaces. The honing side is leather impregnated with Chromium oxide. The stropping side is impregnated with iron oxide. I removed the 2 pieces of leather and sent them to @Drygulch Adam wasted no time whipping up replacement pieces. Adam also noticed that the 2 pieces were different thicknesses. The hone side being thinner of the 2. After thinking about it for a few minutes I came to the conclusion the reason for it was. When honing the blade, the thinner piece would allow the edge more engagement.Switching to the stropping side. The thicker piece would lift the blade slightly to keep the pressure of of the edge a tiny bit. Thatis my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Any how here are a few pictures of before on the strop.


strop side below

 

Awesome work @Drygulch. Beautiful clean up Tom.

 

Next up was mounting my new leather. This was a straight forward process. I first cleaned the sub-straight. I removed all of the old glue and grime. Acetone made quick work of that. I chose to bond the leather with E6000 adhesive. As it is a spray on, I masked all surfaces not being bonded. I mocked up the leather to get my mask lines. After masking both sides. I removed the leather and gave each surface a spray with the E6000


After letting it all setup under pressure for an hour. I went and loaded the new leather with the corresponding compounds.

 

Thanks Fuzzy. You are correct Adam @Drygulch does do fantastic work.

 

I know nothing of honing...do you have to retreat the leather time to time?

 

Yes you do. that being said I will probably go a few years before doing that. If anything just a bit of leather treatment. A very light oiling. You do not want too much paste on the strops. The fine particulate embeds itself in the leather, giving it the very fine cutting ability.

Tom

 

I'm glad I didn't bid on it, then. I saw the Darwin auction, and debated for a couple of days, and decided I didn't _need_ it.

 

Thanks for that. You saved me some money. If you see another one I would recommend getting one. Especially if you like wedge blade razors.

Tom


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Nice job Tom. I'll have to get mine ready for use.

 

Yes you should. Now that you hone it will be a snap getting it dialed in.


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I have a Rolls-Razor Viscount, complete, no cracks in the hone, everything in good shape. Leather needs some oiling, but that's about it. I've been eyeballing getting a second just to have a spare blade, but I haven't rebuild the _first_ one yet.

I'm thinking about shipping the blade to @Billyfergie just to save myself the headache

 

Send it to me. I can do it for you.

Tom


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Does anybody produce these GEM alike wedge blades or only vintage stuff? I can see someone designing a razor in future with these wedge blades and having monopoly on its own razor and blades, if there is enough people wanting this type of shaving and stropping that is

 

I'll do that - it won't be soon, as I have a lot of other projects going before I get to the 'dismantle the rolls, clean out all the years of old grease, re-grease'..... project.

Right now, I'm working on the "fire burned" NEW, and carbon fiber tubes for OLD handles.

I have four guinea pigs for the tubes, so we'll see how well those work as replacements for the broken ones. If they work well, I'll make up a batch and donate them to the shave den shop.

 

A lot of different razor companies have tried making their own blades to avoid the Gillette world - none of them seem to have lasted other than the standard SE (and the despined Feather version)

 

Mine is NOS and the blades have factory edges. I'll dig it out this weekend and see what it will take.

 

Way too cool. Maybe a quick few laps on your finishing stone then strop. Looking forward to hearing how you like it.


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Very nice restore there, Tom. Those Darwins are cool.