Gold wash - to save or not?

[kayvee]

Gents,

Back again seeking help. This time with a ERN crown and sword with a gold wash and some rust. Is there anything I can do to save the wash? Or should I just go for the clean look?

I have in mind to use WD-40 on earbuds to clean the blade. But wanted to be careful and check here first.

 

[Legion]

Hard to tell the extent of the rust from the photo.

 

[Frank Shaves]

Nice razor! Depends on what look you like.

If the razor were mine, I would try to save the plating and then, based on what happens, make the final decision.

1. Wipe the blade with WD-40 using a soft cotton cloth. WD-40 will help convert red oxide (rust) to inert black oxide (magnetite).
2. Wipe the blade with acetone. Buy a bottle of nail polish remover from your local drug store that says 100% acetone on the label.
3. Cover the plating with nail polish.
4. Clean up the bare portion of the face and tang using wet/dry sandpaper and/or metal polish (like Mothers).
5. Remove the nail polish with acetone.
6. Very lightly sand the entire face with fine sandpaper wrapped around a wine cork, sanding perpendicular to the edge.

For step 6, the goal is to remove the schmutz. You are not going to remove the rust and be left with pristine plating. Erase this idea from your mind. It ain't going to happen. I would probably use 1200-grit followed by 2000. LIGHT, LIGHT, LIGHT. If you go too heavy and too long, the etching will vanish like POOF.

If the above fails or you don't like the look, just sand the blade clean.

Here is etching saved by Matt at Griffith Shaving Goods:

Here is the story of me blowing the etching on a different, same model razor.

What's on your work bench right now?

A couple of blades in need of scales. After some thinking, I feel that the top razor needs some nice black horn scales. Can anyone recommend a seller or scales or blanks? Thanks. Ive got some red acrylic for the Bengall.

www.badgerandblade.com

 

[firebox]

Gold wash is really tough to keep intact on vintage blades. My experience is several Dubl Duck Goldedge blades. I had a few and I really tried to keep the gold wash intact but ultimately, I preferred a rust free solid shaver. Sometimes the goldwash is expendable. Save it if you can, but an unusable balde with goldwash isn't as good as a good shaver with no gold wash.

 

[duke762]

I'd save it if possible. I like the challenge removing pitting with out messing up good stuff. I see two spots on the blade that are doable but if it's inside the gold, it's a no go. If the partially rust free blade isn't to your liking, the second route I might take is sand everything to a mirror polish....or leave as is and enjoy the shave. I've got a couple razors I bought to restore. While evaluating them before a possible restore I found they shave good enough to make up for their looks. I'm also amazed at how much corrosion come off just in use. They just seem to get better looking with use. Nice razor!

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Unfortunately, that is Cell Rot, and the bigger problem is the aggressive rust at edge and will the steel hold a new edge?

Before you invest a lot of time restoring the blade and re-scaling, remove the rust from the tang with WD40 and 000 steel wool, then tape the spine to preserve the wash and spine and set the bevel, see if the steel is solid under the rust at the Red Arrow.

If so then begin to remove the rust on/under the wash, (Green Arrows). WD40 by it self will not remove rust, it is good for cleaning and will remove rust with steel wool.

It is likely you will lose some wash in removing the rust, you also need to stop the active rust. So, you really do not have much to lose in trying.

I would first clean with WD40 and steel wool cleaning all the non-gold wash. Clean the gold with a Q-Tip and alcohol do not rub aggressively. Alcohol will not damage the gold and will brighten it.

Try Evapo-rust applied with a Q-Tip, on the rust, (buy the better quality Q-tips used for makeup application, from the Dollar Store) it may lift some gold where rust has eaten the steel. Test Evapo-rust with a drop from a toothpick to see how it reacts with the gold and rust.

Do not use anything abrasive like polish, steel wool or lapping film on the gold, they will remove the gold.

If the Evapo-rust removes too much gold or looks too bad, steel wool 000 or 600 wet and dry, will easily remove all the wash. Evapo-rust will also stop the active rust in the worked spine, which will be difficult to remove with abrasive, you will need chemical treatment to completely remove and stop.

You will need to re-scale, or the off gassing will continue to eat the blade, too bad it was a good looking 3-pin razor.

 

[kayvee]

Oh no. Most of what drew me to the razor were the scales. Such a shame that this is cell rot.

 

[Gamma]

It could be Cell Rot.
Could also just be plain old rust.
I'm on the fence, I would not say for sure it's rot.
There are signs saying cell rot and signs saying not cell rot.

Cell rot is always a possibility with Solingens like this. So any guess/vote for cell rot has some sort of chance of being right.
Like they say, broken watches still tell correct time twice a day.
I've seen a lot of people call cell rot when it wasn't. Hate to see good scales tossed because a broken watch yelled fire in a movie theater.

Since it might be rot, and I'm assuming you might want to try to save the blade, I'd suggest you pull it out of the scales and put the scales in a double zip lock bag far away from the rest of your razors.

Soaking the blade in a strong basic solution will neutralize any acidic residue left by the possible cell rot. I use baking soda/water to neutralize hydrochloric acid I test stones with, which is a lot stronger than what cell rot produces.

In a day or so open the bag with the scales and sniff lightly. If you smell something acidic, like vinegar, or medicinal like Camphor, or any odor that you think doesn't belong there, it's probably rot. If not, then you might be ok. Proceed with caution though.

There is a book about celluloid antiques where the author claims you can stop the outgassing by soaking the celluloid in, I think, baking soda and water. I think the author's name is Shelly or similar.
I don't know if it works, or not, maybe doing some research would reveal some info.

Me, personally, if the cells are outgassing, I probably would not risk it. There are way too many fish in the sea.
As nice as they look, I won't buy Solingens with those types of scales because of the gamble. The root beer/tortoise look is cool but to me they're not worth worrying about.

I usually steer clear of hollow grinds with rot at the edge like this one has too. You can probably hone past it but you might wind taking off a decent bit of width. But you could get lucky, won't know until you try. Hope for the best but plan for the worst.
The gold wash... ehhhh, I'd probably just remove it and hope I could polish out what is under the oxidation. In general I am not a fan of gold wash anyway.