I picked up a lot of three straights in need of restoration off SRP (~$20 each) as test subjects for beginning honing. One of the poor blades was this Swedish frameback:
View attachment 135259
View attachment 135260
I've got a few noobish questions about this blade:
First, about that scratch pattern across the middle of the blade. I originally thought that was some kind of hone-wear gone wild, but looking closer it looks more like hand-sanding...is that what hand-sanding looks like? I think that that doesn't say anything bad about the edge itself--am I horribly mistaken about that?
Also, the scales on this one are real ivory (I was a bit skeptical at first, but they don't look or feel like the faux ivory on my Heljestrand -- they've got a much more irregular pattern, and they don't seem to have the "holes" I've heard of on bone handles). Of course, I'd like to save those, but my original plan for these razors was to destroy them learning to hone -- is this a nice enough blade to warrant finding a different practice razor, or should I start think about moving the scales to something else? (I'd been considering replacing the Heljestrand's faux ivory with these real ones, since they're about the same size & shape).
Last, the scales have a lead spacer. Is there a reasonable lead-poisoning concern in leaving that in place (since I guess I don't touch the spacer that much)?
View attachment 135259
View attachment 135260
I've got a few noobish questions about this blade:
First, about that scratch pattern across the middle of the blade. I originally thought that was some kind of hone-wear gone wild, but looking closer it looks more like hand-sanding...is that what hand-sanding looks like? I think that that doesn't say anything bad about the edge itself--am I horribly mistaken about that?
Also, the scales on this one are real ivory (I was a bit skeptical at first, but they don't look or feel like the faux ivory on my Heljestrand -- they've got a much more irregular pattern, and they don't seem to have the "holes" I've heard of on bone handles). Of course, I'd like to save those, but my original plan for these razors was to destroy them learning to hone -- is this a nice enough blade to warrant finding a different practice razor, or should I start think about moving the scales to something else? (I'd been considering replacing the Heljestrand's faux ivory with these real ones, since they're about the same size & shape).
Last, the scales have a lead spacer. Is there a reasonable lead-poisoning concern in leaving that in place (since I guess I don't touch the spacer that much)?
