Anyone ever used a home grade nickle plating set up to redo their razors? Most of my razors are TTO and are in great shape. I've been thinking out replating now I have bought a few OLDs, NEW improved, NEWs and techs in good condition except for the plating. I wouldn't mind having a couple of good ones of each type for cheap without having to beat collectors for boxed ones. Ie buy a bunch of them for $5 and replate them yourself, and you could always get the $150 replater paid off by offering the replating service to other local razor collectors, or reselling a bunch of poor condition razors you've bought cheap and replated. I was looking at this kit (I'm in australia) http://www.janekits.com.au/mainframe.php
Very interesting. I can see the attraction for some of the razors that are not in very good shape. Would be interesting to see a before and after pictures to see what the re-plating process produces.
In most cases, it takes quite a bit of time to get the razor re-plate ready. You have to get the old finish and plating off and smooth out imperfections (dings, etc). If you work with open combs then those become trickier. It will take you quite a while. What is your time worth? If this is something that you are doing for yourself that you will take joy in doing, that is one thing. But when you are trying to turn these around for a profit, is your time worth the amount you will be making to still be able to sell the razors. Also, please make it clear that these are re-plates and not minty fresh.
I was just interested in doing my own. So time and money spent is irrelevant and I'm not after profit. Getting the razor ready for replating seemed ridculously easy, a few minutes with a dremel and a wire brush atachment and then some cleaning products is all it takes. How did you assume otherwise from what I wrote? I was only asking whether other people had tried it. Yes I said it's possible to recoup the cost from offering the service to other local razor collectors, I only mentioned that part to justify the costs of the equipment, but I'm not about to start importing a million razors from the US with the high postage costs and try to start a profitable business. So back to the point, has anyone tried a small DIY system?
A member on these forums (cooncatbob) sends them off to have replated. I just bought a nickel plated "New" head from him for 20. It looks absolutely perfect and brand new.
I just got one of my NEW's back from him. The plating job looks as good as a brand new Merkur. Mine was already mostly stripped (looked coppery) when I sent it to him. I think a couple of people have done write-ups on the home plating kits and weren't all that thrilled with the results. Didn't one fellow get a skin condition from working with the chemicals? Honestly, if you're planning on buying a lot of beat up razors that you want to refurbish, you might be able to work out a deal with a plating shop like Bob has. Perhaps offer them some word-of-mouth advertising in exchange for a cut rate on your plating work?
Yeah thanks. Got a link to any of these write ups you mentioned? edit: yeah some people get skin conditions washing up dishes. One of my first jobs was working with cyanide to mix into dirt samples to check for gold quanity, so I'm not worried about chemicals, just the quality of the plating with the DIY kits. I know the good work cooncatbob does, I'm in australia though. The exchange rate sucks and postage is about $8 each way. I'm not planning on buying a lot of beat up razors, or selling them for profit. I have a few, and will more likely buy a few more if I find them cheap enough (to keep or scavenge for parts etc). But rather than spending $10-30 ea on them and hope they are as good as I thought from the photo, my plan was to just buy the crappy looking ones, not get ripped off, replate them myself anyways, and if someone local or in australia wants theirs done, then do that for them to help recoup the costs in the equipment purchase outlay. As far as vintage razors are concerned, most places outside of the US is a desert, and if anything decent ever shows up, US buyers or resellers snap it up anyway, you can;t get soemthing for a decent price when mad collectors or profiteerers are biding against you. There's no vintage stores/markets/malls dealing in razors outside of the US and many US sellers won't ship internationally either. So I get what I can get, and pay stupidly high shipping costs for the privelidge sso I'm looking for a local solution that's cheap for me here in australia. If I can't find any comapnies here to do it for me, I was looking into DIY, hence this thread.
So the old plating has to be stripped off and than doesn't the razor have to go straight into some sort of acid solution to prep the brass? I think that its more than a one step process and that it takes more work than a wire brush and some scrubbing bubbles. Also it doesnt involve cathodes or anodes so its going to be a very long process. Plus, how many nimcrons thick will the plating be with a checmical only kit? Honestly, it sounds like an extremely cheap kit that may or may not work and probably isnt worth the time. By the time you get it in the mail you could have found somebody to replate it for whatever it would cost you to replate it with that kit.
Please do all Gillette enthusiasts and collectors a favor and if you do replate please mark the altered razors somehow. A stamp imprint under head would be ideal to distinguish original ones from re plates.
http://www.shavemyface.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34837&highlight=replating And sorry mate, didn't mean to get too far off your original post... just suggesting possible alternatives.
I clean up the razors (3 piece only) with oven cleaner (removes clear coats and grunge) dremel wire wheel, fine emery paper, micro-mesh pads and the buffer, brown and white rouge. I don't remove all the old plating except for the gold, nickel is the base plating for most other platings. If your working with Merkurs or late model Tech caps you have to be careful. If there's any expose zinc alloy they have to be flash plated with copper 1st. With my wood and metal fabricating I don't want to get involved with the plating process. Every major metropolitan area has plating shop listed in the phone book. I was told by my guys that chrome is a lot more expensive then nickel, you have to plate copper alloys with nickel 1st and the chrome plating require more electricty, the chemical are more toxic. While it easy to fing a shop that will chrome large part, finding a shop to do smaller part is hard and costly. I just do the nickel because I can't tell the difference unless the part are side by side and I prefer the nickel it warmer colored then chrome.
Thanks for that. The kit I linked to was way better, and also explains the fact that for replating to work, it has to he heated, which would explain that guys crap results.
hello everyone, I just started wet shaving in the last six months or so and to tell you the truth I never had better shave in my entire life than when I used a Gillette 'NEW' razor that I bought on eBay. I must say that it feels like I'm getting a very good shave when I can actually feel the blade against my face… To tell the truth I love it! Now it seems I'm all over eBay trying to buy up everything. Anyway, now that I have a few razors, Gillette's, I wonder if anybody can help me find someone that would be able to replate them, and what the cost might be. Thanks very much from a very happy newbie… Al
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