A little rust

[bluefoxicy]

I acquired an amazing razor for $10. It has some rust on the blade, but not enough to destroy the blade.

I'll put up pics soon. Going to start by buffing the body with aluminum foil.... and then .... brush the blade gently with the foil... I'm not sure how to clear the rust off the actual cutting edge...

Thermite is ferrite oxide and aluminum; it reacts and creates aluminum oxide and iron. The aluminum rub works the rust off the metal, but that last layer will convert to iron; otherwise I may need to grind off some actual metal material to remove all the rust. We'll see how this works in practice.

[jsrdrnr]

Good luck! Great find!!! Cant wait to see the pics.

[bluefoxicy]

An antique straight I am restoring to use. Tang says:

JAX_S BAR`_OW & ZON*S E
MANUFACTURERS
HEFRIEND

Which I made out to

JAMES BARLOW & SONS E
MANUFACTURERS
SHEFFIELD

The E looks manually engraved, like a smith's signature... closer examination, it says "ECHO"?

[bluefoxicy]

Holy freaking shyte.

That did exactly what I expected, in the same way the second atomic bomb test did what the engineers thought it'd do (the second design produced an explosion 30 times bigger than calculated)

I have chunks of metal on my razor that used to be rust. WTF?

Also the blade took minimal damage (I was careful), and is ready for honing!

[bluefoxicy]

Some more research:

http://straightrazorplace.com/classi...p?product=4237

"This is an old razor, Barlow and Sons were in business from 1828 - 1856 in Sheffield."

So my razor dates 1828-1856 (my guess was 1830-1850). Interesting, it really is an antique. I wonder if I could get my hands on a pre-1776 (pre-American-Revolution) razor... this one's definitely pre-Centennial; the manufacturer folded 80 years after the US declared its independence from Britain.

http://www.straightrazorplace.com/fo...ld-bocote.html

Here's one Max cleaned up, scaled in wood. I could probably do this; I'm going to polish up the metal with a dremel with a cotton buffing tip (stay off the cutting edge, that gets honed anyway). I don't know how to deal with the pins, I can't pull them off or I'd replace them. Maybe a rescale, but eh... the scales are fine, oxiclean would be nice for the scales if I could remove the blade.

The blade itself is perfectly straight and in excellent condition. Once cleaned up this is gonna be like an almost-new razor, save for the honing marks; it's a fully functional shaving implement, if I can get it sharp enough (Lynn could do that for $20). Too bad my camera's 1.3MP, the pictures suck; otherwise I'd take some better ones as I go along. Really though, this thing could have been manufactured in 1990 and it'd be in as good condition.

[Wann]

Are you saying that aluminum foil can remove rust from a blade

How bad was it before?

[bluefoxicy]

Are you saying that aluminum foil can remove rust from a blade

How bad was it before?

It wasn't very rusted, it only needed a little polish. The blade had some discoloration... like, a layer of rust but it was so slight it didn't matter.

Ever see railroad welding powder, i.e. thermite?

Fe2O3 + 2Al → 2Fe + Al2O3 + heat

Well, I had an oxide of iron... a quick brush with aluminum foil turns rust back to iron, just it worked out a bit better than I expected (I got some gray carbon steel dust, but just a bit; mostly it converted in place).

I would not recommend running this stuff across the blade. I folded a little over to squeeze the sides, and gently drew it up away from the blade (not along) to clean the cutting edge itself. Be mindful of the material and the object you're dealing with; you can literally tear the edge off a singing razor.

[balaban9331]

interestingly enough,after i read this thread i got some aluminum foil and took it to one of my rusted chisels. i can't deny that a definite reaction took place.i was surprised considering that i have worked with steel pretty much since i started working and have never seen or heard of this before.very interesting.robert

[turbine712]

interestingly enough,after i read this thread i got some aluminum foil and took it to one of my rusted chisels. i can't deny that a definite reaction took place.i was surprised considering that i have worked with steel pretty much since i started working and have never seen or heard of this before.very interesting.robert

So you say there was a reaction. Can you describe what took place or how did the razor change?

[bluefoxicy]

The scales seem to be made out of a plastic or acryllic or something. Did we have this stuff pre-civil war? Are these original?

If they're new-ish synthetic rescales I might swap them for some Dovo ebony scales.

The first human-made plastic was invented by Alexander Parkes in 1855 [7]; he called this plastic Parkesine (later called celluloid). The development of plastics has come from the use of natural plastic materials (e.g., chewing gum, shellac) to the use of chemically modified natural materials (e.g., rubber, nitrocellulose, collagen, galalite) and finally to completely synthetic molecules (e.g., bakelite, epoxy, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene)

Hmm. In operation 1828-1856 ... it'd have to be the last razor made....

[mdunn]

its also possible that the original scales broke and were replaced at a later date

[bluefoxicy]

its also possible that the original scales broke and were replaced at a later date

In which case I'm rescaling this thing in Ebony.