Restoring a straight razor
Most of this may be all too familiar to the more experienced restorers, but some folks new to razor restoration may find some interest. Also, usually by now you would see before pix and immediately following would be beautiful “after shots”, but we won’t be so “cut and dry”. Today… we “stop and smell the roses” or in razor talk, strop and feel the edge (hey, would someone come up with a better catch phrase?... please).
Background
Now, if you are only interested in Butcher Chop Duck while the Philharmonic plays the Waltz (or other such popular brands), or expect to see new and exotic scales… you may want to click your browser’s back button now… because today we do something different… recycling!..
Good… Now the boys are gone... lets get on with it.
Razor as advertised
First up… eBay pix. These photos are slightly cropped to obscure the other razors… they probably should be a part of this discussion, but I will leave it for another topic/thread at that point the un-cropped photos will be more meaningful.
Allow me turn back the hands of time and theorize. Back in those days a cutler would apprentice at a large cutlery firm, he may one day leave the firm to establish his own cutlery business and simply stamp his “Sir Name” (Milward) to the tang. He may produce excellent quality razors. But for whatever reason the company may be short lived, and now, today, it is almost impossible to find information about the manufacturer… such is life. But probably this razor is the only surviving one of its kind. End of theory, fast forward… present day.
I bought this razor in a lot of three… nothing special, never herd of the brand, and like many no-name branded razors this one has only one stamp on the tang… “Milward”.
As you can see she looks pretty bad… surly you won’t want to shave with it in that condition… rust on the blade face, edge and much around the pivot area, look at the close up pivot area, rust embedded in the scales, but the scales appear to be solid, pins appear to be intact, hone were seems minimal.
But we can’t tell much from these photos, many fatal issues do not show up well in photos.
Up next “as received” photos. Will there be more problems? a crack, chips, pitting at the edge?… stay tuned, next post we will see its true condition when we have-it-in-hand.
Razor as received
If you buy many razors from online auctions, you will eventually develop and “eye” for what’s worth it and what’s not. You should develop a habit of comparing the item in hand with the photos in the auction. First, let’s quickly confirm our suspicions.
The blade face is rusty and pitting extends all the way to the edge (that can’t be good), and plenty rust in the pivot. The jimps are relatively rust free except the parts at the pivot. The spine is as bad as the blade face… but that should also be expected.
Now we see what was not apparent in the auction photos. Look at the full blade and close up photos, excessive hone were at the tow, and the edge seems to have a slight frown (or an “S” frown), the frown is more apparent in the full rear face photo and close up. You will perceive this better if you look at the contrasting color of the bevel… normally this should be a straight line or a smooth curve.
This may not be the best example of a frown, in fact it is so slight that some may call this an “uneven edge”, because from the heel to the middle does appear “straight”, and from the middle to the toe has a smile.
In any case I believe this is a good candidate for the dreaded “bread knife manoeuvre”.
Hone wear is not exactly what we would like, it’s a bit heavy at the toe (certainly not as bad as the other razor in the previous post… but that will be another discussion and thread).
Again, look at the contrasting flat spot at the spine, it is wider at the toe than at the heel… and that would probably explain why the edge at the toe is turned up.
The original owner may have had a fast cutting hone and heavy hand while lifting the tang at the end of his stroke.
As mentioned the pivot area full of it rust… no doubt, she will have to be de-pinned if we will ever shave with her.
Stick around, in our next post, we discuss stripping her down to her birthday suit… err… disassemble so we can see what she’s got hidden between her... scales.
