Old French razor Questions

Folks,

I bought an old French razor and have questions....

It's a typical old French razor, roughly made would be a kind word compared to modern blades. It's marked with a maker's mark (I think, sometimes theses names are shop or individual's names) and 521, neither of which I found in the on-line list of French marques. Does anyone know anything about the maker/vintage? See image of marque, courtesy of the seller.

Next, I put a bit of honewear on the spine taking out an area of "sparklies" on the edge, not chips, just a small flat area probably where it hit the scales since it appears the blade is not straight or the pivot hole has been drilled unsquare with the blade; tapping the pin on the close side does nothing. The blade is a near wedge, and the hollowgrind has some ripples in it. So while I'd prefer to not put this kind of wear on it simply for cosmetic purposes, does anyone have any tips or tricks for avoiding it on these rough old razors short of taping the spine? The bevel is fairly even now though a little larger on one side than the other. BTW, I do "torque" the blade to the edge and that seems fairly effective at minimizing the spinewear.

And as it turns out, the steel seems incredibly hard. I don't usually buy razors with visible edge defects that have to be ground out, and I was pretty pleased with my initial inspection that revealed only "sparklies" on the edge, no chips as such. But it took me about 1-1/2 hours on a Norton India stone to get them out, and about 3 times as long as normal on the finishers to finish, say 150 strokes or more. Slurry darkened at a noticeably slower rate on all the finishers I tried. The stuff seems TI hard or harder! I'd expect old steel to be soft and mellow, but not this guy.

Thanks for any comments, advice, and help!

Cheers, Steve

Hard steels get the dmt 6 micron(4k equivalent) followed by the dmt eef(8k equivalent) then when the geometry is correct, I dull on glass and reset at the chosera 1k and up from there. Most TIs or other hard steels(vintages) I get to hone have wavy bevels. The dmt evens them up fast.

I have a gelle-freres 1/4 hollow and it's in my top 3 best shavers ever. It was, I found, better steel than my 1/4 hollow TI Le Grelot and took a better edge.
Restored beautifully too, with nice ebony wood scales.
This pictures not the greatest, but you can easily read the name.

I wondered if it was a Gelle-Freres, but the stamp is not as readable as I'd like - and apparently factory.

Just finished the first shave with it and it is a superb shaver, as good as anything I have despite the blade looking like 5 miles of bad Vermont road.

So maybe a good candidate for a restore.

Cheers, Steve

French steel can be very very hard indeed.
I have a Grelot that's unbearably hard.
You can torque a heavy grind without too much worry - but you can still twist it so be careful.

Personally - I'd measure the blade out and then target the bevel angle as the first point of interest.
See where that takes you - I find that working with an obtuse bevel angle is less than desireable.

It may turn out that using tape will not be advantageous here.
If you're in a good bevel-angle place, or the angle is of no concern, then not taping is fine but you'll get wear.
You can dress the wear pattern at the spine down with w/d, polishing, etc - if it's a distraction.
I don't mind spine wear myself. I tape when I need/want to, not because of spine wear - unless the spine is engraved or something.

I use lower-grit stones or just more time on the 1k.

Thanks for the info, I'm really just being a little too picky regarding the hone wear. The bevel is straight and good, and the big smile on the spine - this side only BTW - is apparently caused by bulging just below the original honing surface, not uneven hone wear. Seen this before too.

Cheers, Steve

Looks like a Gelle-Freres to me TBH....I can also make out what looks to be "Paris" underneath...nice looking vintage razor!

It's rough JP! But if it continues to impress, maybe it gets a trip to be spruced up. The scales are horn and good if plain, but it looks like they were finished by rubbing them on asphalt.

Cheers, Steve

Any one hear of this French maker Charles Freres

jpcwon said:

Looks like a Gelle-Freres to me TBH....I can also make out what looks to be "Paris" underneath...nice looking vintage razor!

Click to expand...

Good to see you here again Jp.

Very nice razor Steve.

I think it is beautiful. When you say roughly made I wonder compared to the likes of a Hart Steel or Portland RC. I consider those pretty rough or at least basic. Certainly not the flowing lines of yours. It also looks long. Over 3inches. Add the smile and you have a keeper.

It's alive, ALIVE!!!

This razor's metal was finished kind of like the Portland's or Hart's as I see them in images, I've never seen either in person. The scales however were very rough compared to any modern razor. The Gelle-Freres did take a trip to Chez Alfredo, and the results appear below. The metal was smoothed and polished a bit, but the original texture was not polished out. The scales are beautiful black horn. Very nice!

Oh, and Gelle-Freres is still in business, in Paris though they don't still selll rasors.

Cheers, Steve

That turned out very nice.

Looks great!
I like the thumb notch in yours.

Steve
How is the stropping action, does the thumb notch or the humb back affect a natural rolling motion as you change direction on the strop?

Alx

Hi Alex,

Well yes and no. I've always been able to adjust to thumb notches pretty easily, but the tang on this razor, like on a Torrey "Our 136" and an Eiko I have, tapers in TWO dimensions. It isn't unusual to see razors with tangs tapered along the length of the razor, but these razors have tangs tapered from top to bottom, that is, the bottom of the tang is narrower than the top of the tang. A double taper is just plain awkward when stropping.

Cheers, Steve