Thread: What are you working on?

Curious on how to clean this old girl up without damaging the awesome etching...

Originally Posted by DickWhitman

Curious on how to clean this old girl up without damaging the awesome etching...

Hard to be sure from the picture, but that etching looks pretty deep. Also, the worst of the pitting does not overlap the etching. I've seen threads in which people describe using transparent nail polish to cover an etching, then sand around it, later removing the polish with acetone. If I were working on this razor, I might try that method. The reverse side wouldn't present a problem--just ordinary buffing or sanding, over the whole blade, would do the trick.

Joe

Thank you Hart, I greatly appreciate it!!!!

last few days for me were around making of this ring,.. concrete composite and polished ebony.. took me some tricks to get to the end (concrete isn't very cooperative, but i had to use it..)

Originally Posted by DickWhitman

Curious on how to clean this old girl up without damaging the awesome etching...

That's a very nice etch... and probably some very deep pitting under the black. It depends what kind of end product you are looking for. If you want to get rid of the pitting AND save the etching then send it out to a pro. If you are ok with some pitting and want to the black gone, then put it in a vibratory tumbler with walnut media for a few days. There is also a pretty good chance the rust wont be spreading very much more, so you can polish, oil, sharpen and shave and call it good. I would love to see how it turns out, keep us posted.

Matt

Will do! Thanks

Rough turned a Box Elder burl I cut a while back, post #152. Very happy with what I found underneath. Tons of red going through this box elder. Socked the wood hardener to it to try and save some punky areas. Should turn out to be a nice bowl once it dries a bit more.

My wife already told me she's keeping it.

Originally Posted by DickWhitman

Curious on how to clean this old girl up without damaging the awesome etching...

I'm a FIRM believer in starting High and working low to see what you have! Those that start Low tend to end up destroying the heart and soul of a razor. Here's an example of what I mean by starting High.

I'd scuffed the blade with some 1K grit W&D sandpaper then worked lower and then back up to 2K then Mothers Mag Wheel Polish the scales were cleaned up with Bumper Black and 3M Hard Plastic Polish.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/custo...n-cleanup.html

While the etching does look deep there is no need to erase anymore than need be to clean up the blade to your specs

Personally, I'd start with the Mothers and see what you have. Remember, you can always go lower but IF you go TOO LOW then you have to work much harder to remove the heavy scratches

I hope this helps.

I agree with the above. I usually start with some mothers polish to see what I have to work with. Sometimes I will start with 1k if it looks like mothers won't do much. If I have to I will go lower than work my way back up, but like said above the lower you go the more you will have to do to work your way back up. I find that most times I had to compromise and leave some pitting in order to save an etch or lose an etch to get rid of pitting. Those nice deep etches give you more room to work with, but I try not to make them too shallow because I find them to look better deep with some pitting rather than shallow or gone with no pitting. In the end though it comes down to what you want the end result to look like and what you are willing to do to get to that result, but the very first thing I always do now and I learned this the hard way is to take the razor to some stones and make sure I can put an edge on it. I spent alot of time on cleaning up some razors just to find out that the edge was so badly pitted or corroded that it wasn't worth the effort so now the razors hit the stones just to make sure. Good luck.

making a CA coated Meranti pine box for a B'day present str8 & cleaning up an old strop to go with it,
& a W&B wedge restore for me, a mystery hardwood 3 blade box for the hell of it & about a dozen or so other Str8s in line to still do.