Question about shave-ability.

I bought this from the Internet for a couple of bucks to tinker with.
After reading a couple of the restoration projects here, I wanted to take a shot at it and try it myself.
So I bought this:


After taking a close look I was wondering about the heel part of this razor.
seems like this one has reached its end of life?
I'm fairly new to straight razors, so I'm not perfectly sure what to look for when I buy something of the Internet.
This "worn out" part wasn't described in the post about what to look for when buying something from the Internet. (Can't find the thread at the moment, sorry.)


On the blade it says: "ESSAYEZ - MOI" in French, meaning "USE ME". Not so sure about that though.
On the tang it says: "Hamon fabricant a Paris"
Other side of the tang has no markings.


The fun thing about this razor is, everything about it is petite.
The scales are really thin, the blade is very thin, actually.. everything is thin and small.
about half the size of a regular straight razor. Total length of the razor is comparable to a regular razor though.
Probably this razor was made for the bearded lady at the carnival back in the days. (Just kidding.)

If this razor is still usable and can be honed, I would probably use it to get around the hard to reach parts on my face or do my hairline with it.

I'll be having fun cleaning it up anyway, if it's not usable for shaving anymore I can always hone it a bit and use it as a letter opener.

Please let me know what you think about honing this petite razor.

Thanks.

I think that razor's shaving days have passed. I'm sure you can still get some good practice learning to restore a razor with it, but I think you will find other razors to shave with real quickly.

lmarkow said:

I think that razor's shaving days have passed. I'm sure you can still get some good practice learning to restore a razor with it, but I think you will find other razors to shave with real quickly.

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As I thought myself, this one is done for.

I have two usable straights with a third one on the way.
One is a heirloom I got from my dad, not going to tinker with it.
The other one I received by mail today and was made shave ready.
Going to try it out soon.

I'll just make an exquisite letter opener out of this one

If you really wanna try, remove the heel and hone it up. Whats the width from edge to spine? Ive seen people hone 3/8s and shave.

Yes, the poor thing has been honed to death. OTH if you want to try reshaping the heel so you are not honing into the stabilizes you might get some more life out of it.

A clean up and use as a letter opener is a good alternative.

Bob

Knock out the stabilizer and hone away

global_dev said:

Whats the width from edge to spine?

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It's a bit difficult to measure this in inches, but it's about 1 cm metric.
Just took a few pictures comparing it with the Merx.

Top one is the Merx. (My shave ready razor I got today.)

10 mm is abou 7/16 which is a bit bigger than 3/8s.. people have definitley used them

i have honed one and i didn't love the experience (i just wanted used to the size of the razor, but it shaved well enough)

check out these threads

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/262792-Removing-a-week-s-worth-of-beard-with-a-3-8-razor

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/302586-3-8-razor-any-good

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/356028-have-you-tried-shaving-with-a-3-8-straight-razor

BTW, that one is begging for a smiling edge, just check out the roll of the spine

A lot of razors like this can be found. Some NOS. they called them rasoir a effiler, and they were designed for mustach maintenance