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Distressed Brass scales

Substance

Substance

Member
https://imgur.com/JxBgseG


Over the last couple weeks I had the joy to restore/rework this custom Straight razor that was “gaining” its lustre.

The str8 was made by a USA maker not to long ago, but had suffered what appeared to me to be a decent drop causing the brass scales to deform and the pivot pin to stretch somehow about a 0.25mm making the blade floppy and misaligned

The scales are solid brass & originally had a substance on them ( I don’t know what ) to create a toxic distressed look to them, this substance was unfortunately not very durable and has rubbed off from minor use revealing the polished brass base metal.

So it requested to see what I could do to get it back in user condition,
the 1st request was a new rescale in a lighter material as the owner thought it was not too heavy & would not be salvageable but this would lose the original effect wanted.

The repairs and requests were as follows

Strip,
open spine slice gap which was closed,
smooth out some fingers cutting hot spots around the pivot,
straighten bent scales,
re-apply distressed appearance to the scales,
reassemble and hone to shave ready
 
Now onto the scales

I first lightly filed and sanded the sharp edges off causing the discomfort hot spots in use
Then sanded the outer faces back to clean brass @ 1500 grit
https://imgur.com/okiX4JP

For the distressed look
After some testing on scrap brass plate
I cleaned with acetone
applied Ferric chloride in a splatter pattern with a dropper & let sit for several minutes then rinsed with windex
This was repeated about 10 times until happy with the pattern & depth
https://imgur.com/TJegWrM

Then lit the forge and applied heat then cooled to room temp in several stages to get the colour in
I couldn’t get the full blues of the original paste but we were happy with the effect
https://imgur.com/miol8Je
https://imgur.com/G24C2eP

Then it was just a coat of mineral oil to seal them
https://imgur.com/n3aAxbk
https://i.imgur.com/wzuEeiQ.jpg

The finish doesn’t rub off easily by hand now and if it does fade in the future, it is a simple strip heat and rebuild to fix it
 
Re assembled with a wider wedge so the blade sits a bit deeper also
https://imgur.com/JxBgseG

Post honing Next to a standard 6/8” Dovo ready for shave testing
https://imgur.com/a0G3rG1

Noting this is a rather heavy 6/8” str8 weighing in at about 130 grams
Compared to my 17/16” in horn weighing in at just under 100 grams
The 6/8” factory Dovo weighed in at about 60 grams

https://imgur.com/y5OTEyI
 
I shouldn't post so quickly :D

WOW - as always lovely work (y)
 
Yep I realised...thought at first you just received it and about to embark on the transformation journey ;)
 
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