5/8 GEO Wostenholm & Sons Monkey Tail Restore

Well this is the absolute worst one I have gotten yet as far as rust goes. It does not look too deep though so hopefully this one will make a very nice shaver by the time I get her cleaned up Wish Me Luck LMAO!

Not too bad. It'll clean up fine.

That is what I was thinking too but it really all depends on what I find underneath the rust and how deep it goes where the edge is because I know that if it is pitted all the way through then it may be a lost cause or a serious shrink job to like 4/8 if it is too far gone at the edge. I really hope it all uncovers nicely enough to remain as close to the full 5/8 as can be. It is definitely going to get a CLR bath once I have the time on Monday. I work all weekend so I will not have time to do it until then.

From 5/8 to 4/8? that's a lot of metal... Here's to hoping it looks worse than it actually is!

jlindy said:

From 5/8 to 4/8? that's a lot of metal... Here's to hoping it looks worse than it actually is!

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Hopefully tonight I will be able to find out the extent of the damage as I intend to start the rust removal phase this evening when I get home from work so I can at least see what I have to work with. I have never seen a Wostie with a Monkey Tail before so I really, really want this one to be restorable really bad.

Okay, the Initial cleanup is complete to uncover any damage I removed all the rust that is visible without descaling yet. I wanted to uncover the edge and the blade damage and then make a decision to proceed or not. Here is what I have found so far:


So I have never seen a Wostenholm & Sons with a Monkey Tail Before but I think it is kinda cool So +1 to Proceed for that:


Scales and blade shined up pretty good for this minor amount of work(less than 1 hour) So +1 to Proceed for That as well:


It is an I-XL and the Engraving Stamp on the Tang is in Great Condition as well so another +1 for proceeding here:



And Now for the Minuses As you can see in the photos below there is a serious corrosion spot right on the edge that goes all the way through about 1/3 of the way down the blade from the toe so Not sure about this, might be a minus because it looks to need a considerable amount of metal removal to hone past this to good metal.





So I really want to finish this restore up or move on to the next one, any "Yay's" Or "Nay's" that y'all Expert Restorers can think of??

Well the REALLY good news is that I got the bevel set on this baby today and the nastiness in the middle of the edge gave way to good edge metal fairly quickly today without too much loss of size. Very very pleased with the results thus far. Unfortunately I only brought my 1K/6K to work with me today otherwise I would finish it off and go for broke tonight with it LMAO

Once I get home and finish honing it up I will post photos. In my Opinion it came out beautifully considering the amount of rust and corrosion that was on it when I got it.

Here is the progress through 6K thus far. Popping hairs off my arm throughout the entire length of the blade from heel to toe

All Finished with the Monkey Tail and ready to give it it's Inaugural Shave Tonight It does have a lot of pitting throughout the blade from the rust and corrosion it started with but it is shallow enough to not affect the integrity of the blade itself. Luckily the spots on the edge gave way very quickly to good usable metal and the edge took very nicely.

Even the spine and Jimps cleaned up very nicely The top of the Toe had a huge mass of rust and funkiness on it and that cleaned up extremely well also.

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Looking good! I thought that one spot would just about have been a killer. Glad to see you found good metal without having to go to extremes.

jlindy said:

Looking good! I thought that one spot would just about have been a killer. Glad to see you found good metal without having to go to extremes.

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Thank you very much Jindy, I know it is no Professional Job like many of the other's here do on these beauties but I think it looks pretty good for being done by a Weather Forecaster LMAO

I thought the corrosion on the edge would be a killer for it too, looking at it when I started I was sure I would have to take it down more sizes then I wanted to. Luckily it worked out well and I was able to maintain the 5/8 size and I can say that it shaves BEAUTIFULLY! I shaved with it tonight and now over time I will work on removing more of the staining in certain areas and get her back to a much better look.