First Film Honed Razor Shave - Noob Success!

Today I completed my 6th straight shave but this one was special - I film-honed a vintage razor I purchased on ebay for my first home honed razor and I came out with a great shave! It was a pain to set the bevel on it due to the shape I bought the razor in but once I set it on my second try things moved along quickly. Only complaint was that it took me a while due to the mistakes I made being that I'd never honed anything in my life but it was a great learning experience. As a noob, I'm happy that I was recommended film over looking at stones. It's giving me a chance to practice on the cheap - I highly recommend it to others just getting into straights.

Now that I can shave with this, what should I do to clean it up? I dig the bone scales, would like to make it look sharp.

Be careful cleaning a honed razor. You can easily cut yourself.

I'd leave it till it needed honed again.

That is a good point - but once it's time to clean, what would be recommended? I'm in no rush, just happy I can shave with it at this point!

Way to go! Love hearing these stories.

You can use Mothers, Maas or Flitz to clean up the razor and scales. All easily available at an auto parts store or Amazon. As Rick said, though, you don't want to do that on a sharpened razor..

I have a hunch there will be other ebay razors in your house to practice on. You got that vibe.

Great news! Glad to hear it went well for you. Generally I will remove the scales on a razor I want to clean up. I use wet/dry if theres scratching or if Im lucky and no pits and just patina, I use emery compound, then green and red compound. You can so this pretty well with a dremel although I use a bench grinder with buffing wheels. If your scales are good, then repin the razor or make or buy new ones for it. The razor will be dull as a spoon at this stage usually, so maybe get some shaves with it until you make an attempt. Good luck. Power tools can be dangerous, so wear good eye protection and a respirator.

Congrats on your success. I am working on getting the stuff together for some honing as well.

Thanks guys. I already purchased a second ebay razor to practice with that doesn't require as much work but still, great practice. I purchased two nice vintage razors from the BST here and my Gold Dollar 208 courtesy of Buca (thanks again!) that I'm going to hold off on until I am confident I'm doing this right. I will probably need to get more film at that point though - are there any groups that go in on film any one is aware of?

Regarding cleaning, the razor I pictured has flawless bone scales I'd like to keep. If I use the method Buca recommended above I am going to definitely want to at least get a few more shaves in before I do that. Fortunately my next door neighbor has a dremel set, will need to get a respirator before I look into the cleaning but glad to know it's fairly easy to do. Being that the scales on this are keepers, what's the best way to remove the pin without causing any damage?

Use a file and file the pin off on one side and see if it comes off, if not, try the other side. Dont pull to hard, scales can break easily.

Mark Y posted a technique that looked good to me, though I've not tried it. He drilled the center out of the pin with a very fine bit, which basically let the pin compress inward, reversing the peen. I think it's somewhere in the restoration forum.

I always used flush snips. They work, but you can scrape the scale if you aren't careful, and you'll wear out a pair surprisingly quickly.

Drilling is best but I use flush cutters. I tape the scales so I don't gouge them.
If I had a drill press I'd use that. I don't, so - the cutters have to do for me.

There is some restoration-help in this thread - 'Click Here'.

That thread is exactly what I need, thanks Gamma. I just purchased a new razor to play with with an eye toward restoring on the BST today. More hone wear then I'd prefer but the razor is stamped with my hometown (only reason I bought it) so thought why not try to restore it as best I can and use it as a display piece. Here actually, that rust is going to be the tough part but replacing the broken scales with something new will be fun:

Sweet!!! I am looking into getting into straight restoration this winter myself as well!. Got to learn how to hone first. What lapping film progression did you use, and ~how many laps per step?

I followed a few of the step by step methods outlined here