Ugly duckling turning into a swan...

So in the thread about the Gold Dollar Honing Passaround, Paco664 made a comment about wanting to get his #208 rescaled. I decided to PIF a set of scales to him and he agreed and sent me his Gold Dollar.

It ain't a pretty razor - probably the ugliest faux carbon fiber scales I have ever seen. Typical Gold Dollar from what I have seen. BUT, Paco664 can HONE, because this sucker shaves really nice. He fixed the heel only as much as necessary and put a very nice edge on it. It shaves as well as some of my better razors.

If any of you are looking for honing services, you should contact him - I'm going to send out a couple of mine just for kicks (I hone my own stuff but want to see what someone else would do).

Anyway, I finished up the "new suit" last night. I need to do some more peening though as the pivot is still not tight to my standards.

The scales are tiger wood milled to 3/32" with a maple wedge. Pinless as I like the clean look. The finish is eleventy thousand coats of shellac, wet sanded out to 600 then buffed on a wheel with tripoli. The pin is brass.

Enjoy:




Next up I hope to have his big 9/8 chopper that he hand made finished up. It's got some really cool scales in the works... Stay tuned.

Jeff

nice looking razor. a man might be tempted to hang on to it,,,,but no.

I love your pinless scales. Nice work Jeff. I can't wait to see that chopper in a set of scales.

Jeff... That razor is more beautiful than i could have hoped for... Thanks for the honing complement....

Nice razor, what glue do you use on the wedge?

Lookin good!

Doc226 said:

Nice razor, what glue do you use on the wedge?

Click to expand...

This one is CA, however, Titebond II is also good. Doesn't have to be 100% waterproof, and Titebond II is approved for outdoor applications. Also, with 10 or so coats of shellac on the joint, there's little risk of failure. Actually, if you titebond two pieces of wood together, let them cure, and then try to break the joint, in most cases the wood will fail and tear near the glue joint rather than the glue joint failing.

paco664 said:

Jeff... That razor is more beautiful than i could have hoped for... Thanks for the honing complement....

Click to expand...

Any time buddy, and thanks for the compliment! I can't wait to get back on the chopper, however, I will have no choice for the next couple nights. Shop is disassembled. Foundation repair crew is coming in the morning, so I had to clear a wall in the shop for them. Friggin' mess down here...

wow!! that looks great!! you sir know your scales. oh, I just got around to sending those darn pins out today.

nice working on this one.
The scales are more worth than the razor itself

Izrahvil said:

nice working on this one.
The scales are more worth than the razor itself

Click to expand...

..... ....... i love my gold dollar...

trick420 said:

The finish is eleventy thousand coats of shellac

Click to expand...

Beautiful scales! Im still laughing at the "eleventy thousand" quip. Reminds me of my sister when she was younger.

paco664 said:

..... ....... i love my gold dollar...

Click to expand...

I love your gold dollar too. That's not... That's not weird right?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
That's weird. yeah... weird...

While I think the symmetry on the front of the scales ends a bit abruptly, and could use a little less curvature for the GD profile, I think the overall project came out very nice. Super job on the wedge. Great fit and finish. Nice looking wood. Looks like you have the mechanics handled for popping out some really nice scales pretty quickly.