Thread: Fenney Tally Ho Restore or Not ?

I never thought I'd make one of these posts, but I need some opinions. Should I restore this or preserve it as is? I don't really want to start collecting straights, as I'm wanting to intensely start my razor making. I'm just not sure what I want to do. Opinions, observations, jack-*** statements all welcome. What's kind of cool about it as it is, is that the scales cracked sometime in this razor's past and was repaired very successfully by someone. I can just imagine someone who needed to keep his razor working and didn't have the money to buy a new one. The blade still centers!! The blade pictures are after about 15 minutes with Mother's polish. The blade reflections are to show the pitting. I'm going to hit it with some 800 grit tomorrow and see how the pits respond.

No harm in honing it up & seeing how it shaves. I had one for 3 or 4 years before I brought myself to restore it. The blade looks in fairly good condition so a good candidate for restoration. Be careful with the unpinning & you can always reuse the scales even if you decide to make new ones.
The razor is old but not so rare. You will not be ruining a valuable collectable by restoring it.

FENNEY, FREDERICK
Sheffield
1824 - 1852 ("Old Sheffield Razors" by Lummus. Antiques, December
1922 p.261-267)

I love these razors.
Paul

I personally like my blades restored, and given the condition of the scales I'd go for it.

I'm still torn. Half of me wants to preserve the provenance of the wire wrapped wedge, half of me wants to polish this thing up and make it shine. I'll probably make it new again. I have a couple of others to do first, so I've time to decide.

The biggest thing is this razor is no less than 160 years old. I've told myself that I wouldn't collect anything newer than 1850, so this one would fit into that. I also really like makers that only made razors in a narrow range of years. Supposedly those two constraints will keep me from collecting willy nilly...........

Originally Posted by medicevans

The biggest thing is this razor is no less than 160 years old. I've told myself that I wouldn't collect anything newer than 1850, so this one would fit into that. I also really like makers that only made razors in a narrow range of years. Supposedly those two constraints will keep me from collecting willy nilly...........

Oh man! I wish I'd thought of that excuse!

It won't work, because that describes an incredible number of razors, but it sounds SO GOOD.

That said, I've got a fairly similar Fenney and it's a magnificent shaver. One of my very best. At some point someone gave it a hollow grind, but that sure didn't hurt it.

Personally, I think what I'd do is soak the whole shebang in neatsfoot oil for a week then polish the everloving hell out of it with micromesh and call it done. My sense is that you could accomplish a comfortable middle-ground between 'factory finish' and rustic.

Originally Posted by medicevans

I'm still torn. Half of me wants to preserve the provenance of the wire wrapped wedge, half of me wants to polish this thing up and make it shine.

I collect knives and I can completely relate to your dilemma. I have a box filled with ones I've left as I found them. I am not really sure why on some I have zero issue with an enthusiastic return to newness? On others though, I can't bring myself to do it. Odd.

Tom

My underlying reasoning is as follows:

We here at SRP are into straight razors and related items. We can argue and debate the smallest differences in brands, steels, soaps, strops, hones, and, and, and........ We sometimes forget that for a long long time straight razors were a tool, nothing more. Just like many of my tools, I wonder if the gentleman who owned this only had one razor. I can imagine his dismay when the wedge broke, and his elation at finding a cheap, effective fix. Maybe he couldn't afford a new razor. Maybe he was just cheap. We'll never know, but the guessing is what makes it fun. I mean, maybe it was carried by a Civil War soldier?? Again, it's fun to speculate.

If the blade touched the scales, then I'd rip them off, no questions asked. I'm not into wall hanger/safe queen razors. But it doesn't. If the pivot was incredibly loose, again they'd come off. But it's not. In fact, it's tight all the way around!

I just don't think I can bring myself to ruin a good thing. A bit of rust and pits never hurt anyone. I had thought about doing what Voidmaster suggested, and I'm going to think on I overnight. I may not even go that far. I don't want these things shiny. I may just soak them and knock the gunk out from inside the scales and hone it up. ........

Originally Posted by novice

I collect knives and I can completely relate to your dilemma. I have a box filled with ones I've left as I found them. I am not really sure why on some I have zero issue with an enthusiastic return to newness? On others though, I can't bring myself to do it. Odd.

Tom

I'm the same way. My John Barber I had no problem making it shiny. I think it's the wire wrapping that does it for me on these scales. It seems a travesty to undo what someone obviously worked so hard to fix the first time. The John Barber just had cheap generic horn scales on it. No big deal destroying those.

I think you'd be mad at yourself later if you end up removing those scales (just by my take on what you've said so far). Do what you want, of course, but it seems to me like you want someone to talk you out of rescaling it. I'm playing head doctor here, if you can't tell

As an aside, the wire wrapping looks pretty darn cool. If you're going to make a custom razor, you could try something really unique and--instead of pinning that end--bind it. I don't recall ever seeing that. I've seen pins, glue, single-piece scales, etc., but I don't recall ever seeing scales that were bound together. I think it would look pretty neat.