Nice razor, Jim! I'm _NOT_ a fan of giving old razors a mirror-polish but each to his own. In this case, seeing the back has already been polished, I'd also polish the front to the same extent - as a whole. The etching is not too elaborate so its disappearance would not be a great loss.
Thanks Klaus! I'm not sure I'm going to get a mirror finish, but I definitely didn't like the big black streaks on the blade.... There are some stains that I'm not taking the time to remove--I remember you posting about how some wear shows the age of the blade, and I think that's actually a pretty cool idea. I mean, this blade is old...it should probably look it, a little.
OK....the words are gone. I just didn't like the balance of the clean blade with the mottled groove. Now that it's gone, I actually see that the way the staining was marring the lettering actually made the stains seem worse than they were. So that was good. I'm now up to the 320 grit, and it's already getting shiny... So far so good!
Done for now... And after a few days of hand sanding up to #2000 with wet/dry sandpaper (mostly dry), We come to this: The pictures aren't the best, but that is NOT a mirror finish. It's shiny, yes, but there is still a bit of cloudiness. I'm NOT going to take this to the buffer. I decided it was too risky, I'm too inexperienced and this is a razor I want to keep. So, I might take it up to higher grits of sandpaper, but no machinery. I also had some trouble with the monkey tail; it's not as clean as it should be, but to get it better I'd have to unpin the scales, and I don't want to do that yet. As for the scales, that's another issue. They are some kind of plastic--bakelite, perhaps, by the smell--and they were finished with a lacquer that had discolored and flaked off. I scraped it off, leaving a matte black surface, and I'd like to clean that up a bit more. I tried some metal polish, and got some improvement, but I want gloss--any ideas? Anyway, it's pretty much done. It needs honing, and it needs a bit more polish, but the difference is certainly striking. I'm no pro, I never will be, but I didn't screw it up too bad!
Very nice, Jim. This is one very interesting straight and youve done a great job bringing it back to life. Will you hone it yourself or send it out? For the scales, I'd use sandpaper, followed by a plastic polish (I like Meguier's Plast-X; it's sold at auto parts stores). I sand celluloid and lucite pens on a fairly regular basis. Same deal as metal, just much easier. Start with about 400 or 600 and work up to 2000. It should look about like new after the plastic polish. Cheers, Tom
Plastic polish, eh? Awesome! I'm in Japan, so brand names might be different but auto-parts stores are auto parts stores, so that's a good start...thanks for the advice!!!!
Looks great Jim! You might try a little work on the tail with some metal polish, q-tips (pull off most of the cotton) and dental floss. You can even wrap a bit of the sand paper around the q-tip or a tongue depressor. Keep up the good work!
Looks great Jim! I'm not sure how you polished the scales, and maybe it has something to do with the lacquer flaking off, but I have a pair of bakelite(?) scales that I used metal polish on and got a decent result. However, I had to really buff the heck out of them with a clean cloth (I used 'painters rags'). A simple 'wax on, wax off' wasn't enough. It came to a decent shine, but not glowing or glass-like by any means.... I think it adds a nice contrast to the blade though...I like it!
More hijacking - Jim do you mind? I found another of those "diamond edge" razors with the unusual grind
:mad: here I thought you found it on ebay or something.... at first I thought it was Jim's because of the same background....