Old Bismarck Solingen Razor Restoration

[bobasaurus]

I won an old rusty Bismarck Solingen straight razor off ebay for about $15 and decided to try restoring it. I've never owned or used a straight razor before, so this will be a learning experience for me.


Here is the original razor from the ebay listing. Lots of rust along the spine and tang, but just a little on the blade.

Another before picture. Some small rust spots/pits.

Rusty tang.

Rusty spine.

I cleaned off some of the rust on the tang to get a good electrical contact area for the next step.

Electrolysis rust removal setup. It's just a bath of water mixed with ferrous sulfate, a power supply, a scrap piece of steel, and some wire. Attach the negative end to the rusty piece and the positive to the scrap steel and suspend them in the solution. This starts converting the rust on the blade into steel through an electrolytic plating process.

I left the razor in the bath a little long, and it ended up removing all rust and then plating itself with extra steel. Some work with a scotch-brite pad removed the extreme parts of this.

After electrolysis the rust was gone, but I'm left with this thin plating of steel since I left it in too long.

The back didn't get as fully plated, thankfully. The scales are just cheap plastic, so I ground down the rivet head and removed them for the next step.

I used a wire wheel, 220-grit sandpaper, and this sisal wheel with bobbing compound to remove most of the plating and polish the steel a bit.

Looking pretty good for an old razor. I sanded the plating down a ways, leaving some to fill any pits left by the rust.

The other side, also looking good. Hardly any of the plating remains here.

Soon I'll start making a new handle out of some nice hardwood.

 

[bobasaurus]

Some more progress on the razor restoration today.

I cut two pieces of bubinga for the scales.

Flattening the inner faces of the scales with a hand plane.

Thinning the scales on the bandsaw.

Making some brass washers for the pivot.

Rough sanding the scales to shape.

Assembling.

Peening rivets.

Everything is together and rough shaped.

Another picture of the rough shaped razor handle. I'll have to do a lot of fine sanding next.

 

[carbonsteel928]

Looking damn good. Great safety grip on the table saw too, I was worried for a second. Is this your first restore?

 

[bobasaurus]

Yep, it's my first straight razor restoration. I have cleaned up many old woodworking hand planes and other tools though. Reviving a beautiful tool out of an old rusty heap is a good feeling.

I did notice one maybe critical problem. I dropped the razor today and it bounced off my workbench, didn't think much of it. But I just noticed that the edge has a very slight crack where it hit, damn it all. I was able to straighten it back, and I think I can grind it mostly out while establishing the initial bevel on my wetstones. Sucks being clumsy when working on delicate things.

 

[bobasaurus]

Finished my razor restoration:

I sharpened it with my shapton waterstones (1000, 5000, 8000, and 15000 grit), then stropped with white rouge on a paper wheel grinder setup. It still doesn't seem to be sharp enough to shave with. I'll have to get a better stropping setup.

 

[BobbyH]

If after all that honing and stropping it does not feel sharp enough to shave with, it is possible that the initial bevel set at 1000K may not have been quite there. For me it should easily cut arm hairs all along the edge before I move to the next hone in the progression. If I go up the progression before the razor will do that I am just polishing the bevel but the 2 sides of the bevel have not met yet. Gives me a nice looking bevel but a somewhat dull razor.

Bob

 

[bobasaurus]

You might be right. I plan on restarting the sharpening process at 1000 and thoroughly setting that bevel all the way through.

 

[BobbyH]

You might be right. I plan on restarting the sharpening process at 1000 and thoroughly setting that bevel all the way through.

I bet it won't take too much to set at 1K now.

Bob

 

[bobasaurus]

I completely re-did the sharpening this evening. Started with the 1k diamond stone, then shapton pro 1k, 5k, 8k, and 15k stones for at least 5 minutes each (probably overkill, but I wanted to be sure this time) while using very little pressure to avoid distorting the edge. And finally I have success:

I'm giving myself a case of sharpener's mange here, but it's doing pretty good on my hairy arm without any stropping. Here's another picture of the bevel:

Now to buy the rest of this stuff. I'll have to read some of the guides here for brush, soap, and strop/compound recommendations.

 

[Mack]

Nicely done.

 

[brotherscinco]

Wow. Very nice!!! From what I gather it takes a skilled hone Meister to get that ultra sharp razor edge, but you seem to have done pretty well. I'm impressed

 

[BobbyH]

How was the shave?

Bob