First Straight & Straight Restore - Is this a good candidate?

1. You could just polish it up a little by hand with some Maas or Flitz polish, put in some new scales, hone it, and use it as is.
2. Restore it with greaseless compounds to a mirror finish that still has black/pitting spots present - e.g. a clean looking blade that still has original patina to it
3. Restore it back to a complete mirror finish and accept the fact that that much cutting with the compounds may result in a blade that is less wide (e.g. a 6/8 blade instead of an 13/16 or whatever it may currently be)

Malacoda said:

You are correct, those are bone scales.

The side of the blade with the logo on the tang doesn't look too bad - some pitting, nothing greaseless cutting/polishing compounds on a sisal wheel shouldn't be able to handle.

The other side look like it MIGHT be a little worrisome though. Hard to say without a picture that is a little closer and in better focus - bit the pitting on that side looks to be much deeper - which, for a perfect mirror finish, would mean a lot more work with the and, more importantly, removal of a lot more metal. That could end up significantly altering both the width and characteristics of the blade - especially since it looks like there is a thick patch of pitting right along the edge at the first 4-6mm of the blade.

Might not be as bad as it looks though... may just be the slightly unfocused photo.

That said, you have a few options:

1. You could just polish it up a little by hand with some Maas or Flitz polish, put in some new scales, hone it, and use it as is.
2. Restore it with greaseless compounds to a mirror finish that still has black/pitting spots present - e.g. a clean looking blade that still has original patina to it
3. Restore it back to a complete mirror finish and accept the fact that that much cutting with the compounds may result in a blade that is less wide (e.g. a 6/8 blade instead of an 13/16 or whatever it may currently be)

It's a common a very common brand, so you won't be 'destroying' rare, high value blade if the restore goes wrong. By the same token, if it comes out fantastic it won't be worth hundreds of $, so you'll have to decide if it's still means enough to you for the time/money of a full-out restoration.

Whichever way you go, it should deliver some great shaves.

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MattCB said:

A good trick to clean up the black rust is to get some 0000 steel wool and non-abrasive polish (MASS or Blue Magic comes to mind). Tear off a 1" chunk of the steel wool and dp it in the polish. Go at the blade and handle. With a little elbow grease this will remove 99% of the black rust. This works especially well for getting the black out of the pitting.

Let us know which route you chose and how it turns out.

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