Thread: Wade & Butcher: 7/8 Barbers Use Bocote & 6/8 Barbers Notch Restore

It's been a long time coming, but I've finally finished a few firsts at once. My first full restoration, my first set of scales, my first time pinning a razor and my first time shaving with a razor fully restored by me. I'd like to send a HUGE thanks to Maxi for his patience, guidance, shop time and beer. Truly a great mentor and a good friend and I very much appreciate all he's done for me and all he's taught me. Anyway, here are my two first complete restorations:

W&B Barber's Use 7/8

This blade came to me as an Ebay hope & pray. The original scales were borderline salvageable, but they had some pretty big cracks in them and didn't survive unpinning. Luckily, I had been working with bocote and had a nice set of scales ready to go which fit this razor perfectly. I salvaged the original lead wedge for these, as well. The blade had some pretty heavy pitting in areas, but I managed to buff a lot of it out. Being a hollow grind, I didn't want to take off too much metal and I also wanted to leave some of the history intact. I think it's a nice satin finish that shows this blade's character. I started with 80 grit on the wheel, then went to 150, 220, 320, 400 by hand and then back to 600 on the wheel. After that, I just polished it with some Maas. The scales were finished with hand-rubbed Tung oil that was then buffed on the wheel.

Before:






After:

W&B 6/8 Barber's Notch:

This one was quite banged up. It looks like someone took a grinder to the etching, as there was the faintest hint of the "Celebrated" etching on the blade. It also had a fair amount of pitting on the back side, which required a fair amount of time on the buffer and also hand-sanding. In the end, I am happy with removing a lot of the abuse this blade took, as well as bringing the scales back to life. They spent approximately 5 full days in Neatsfoot oil, then were sanded by hand from 220 up to 2500, then a micromesh progression up to 12k. The scales are tending to peel a bit, so I decided to just leave them as they were at that point, as any further sanding would have removed too much material. I am also quite proud with how the pinning turned out on this one, as it was my first time pinning a razor (pivot only).


Before
Bottom





After











Thanks for looking.

They look good in the pics, and they look even better in person. You did a fine, fine job sir.

Great Job Jack !
Bring them to Guelph (assuming you'll be there)
See ya then!
Mike

Both very impressive. Something to be proud of.

Excellent work on both restores. Well done. I really like the way you used the grain the timber, looks fantastic. Nice pinning too.

Stu

stunning pics and a brilliannt result, congrats for those great restorations , well done

Excellent job on both, I'm usually not a big fan of woodn scales, but those look good

they look great Jack!!

Those are some really wade and butchers. always like the barbers notch