A while ago I was fortunate enough to buy this 7-day set of straights for a pretty nice price.
The reason they were cheap is obvious in the pics below. The razors seem to have never been honed, but water got into the box at some point and there was serious rusting on the spines, and tangs of the blades.
When I bought this set, I hadn't ever done any restoration, and I still haven't (really). I was pretty sure that they would never look perfect again, but all I was hoping for was a usable 7-day set.
After I got them, I realized that any work on the front faces of the blades would result in the loss of the gold wash. I'm not a big fan of gold wash, but I try to preserve things if possible. After looking at the blades I decided to remove some of the black rust on the spines and tangs and let the rest be.
So, I used 1000-2000 grit sandpaper, and then Emory compound and Maas, using a dremel or by hand and I got most of the black stuff off. Some residual black staining remained, especially on a couple of razors, but I determined that to get rid of that would require some serious metal loss and that was not something I was interested in doing. The tangs/monkey-tails are still pretty nasty, because they were really in bad shape, but there would have been divots in them if I'd tried to take off all the staining.
The box was in pretty ratty shape, but I think it could be restored. I didn't have the time (or the inclination) to fix it up, so I used a box I got in another trade.
Here are the 'after' pics. As you can see they are still in pretty bad shape (visually).
So, how good are the razors?
They're excellent Solingen blades. I honed a few of them on my various coticules, and they took excellent edges very easily. The shaves were really, really good - which is the main thing, really.
The plan is to finish each blade on a different finishing hone (lord knows I have enough of finishers), but it will take some time to get around to it.
---------
When I have worked on my restoration technique a bit, I'll return to these razors and see if I can improve the looks of the blades. I thought that at this stage less was more.
The reason they were cheap is obvious in the pics below. The razors seem to have never been honed, but water got into the box at some point and there was serious rusting on the spines, and tangs of the blades.
When I bought this set, I hadn't ever done any restoration, and I still haven't (really). I was pretty sure that they would never look perfect again, but all I was hoping for was a usable 7-day set.
After I got them, I realized that any work on the front faces of the blades would result in the loss of the gold wash. I'm not a big fan of gold wash, but I try to preserve things if possible. After looking at the blades I decided to remove some of the black rust on the spines and tangs and let the rest be.
So, I used 1000-2000 grit sandpaper, and then Emory compound and Maas, using a dremel or by hand and I got most of the black stuff off. Some residual black staining remained, especially on a couple of razors, but I determined that to get rid of that would require some serious metal loss and that was not something I was interested in doing. The tangs/monkey-tails are still pretty nasty, because they were really in bad shape, but there would have been divots in them if I'd tried to take off all the staining.
The box was in pretty ratty shape, but I think it could be restored. I didn't have the time (or the inclination) to fix it up, so I used a box I got in another trade.
Here are the 'after' pics. As you can see they are still in pretty bad shape (visually).
So, how good are the razors?
They're excellent Solingen blades. I honed a few of them on my various coticules, and they took excellent edges very easily. The shaves were really, really good - which is the main thing, really.
The plan is to finish each blade on a different finishing hone (lord knows I have enough of finishers), but it will take some time to get around to it.
---------
When I have worked on my restoration technique a bit, I'll return to these razors and see if I can improve the looks of the blades. I thought that at this stage less was more.
