Day 1 - A very used and in need of some fixing-up Greaves Sheaf Works straight razor arrives in the mail. The bone scales needed some attention, the wedge was toast and the blade needs some sanding and polishing.
The scales appear to have been hand-engraved with symbols used by a fraternal organization known as the International Order of Odd Fellows. I’ve never seen this before and I wanted to save them. The pivot pin seemed to be quite hard, and possibly made of steel. The other one seemed to be a standard brass pin. Neither one came out easy though. The wedge pin took nearly 45 minutes to get out.
Day 2 – Installed a vintage lead wedge that was salvaged from a broken set of scales a while back. The pins and washers are brass. The ends of the scales have some worm holes, and they don’t line up very well. After the blade is pinned in I can finish the shaping and sanding here. I’ll fill the holes with CA glue and after sanding it should smooth out pretty well.
Day 3 – Worm holes filled, wedge-end of the scales sanded down and re-beveled, blade pinned back in with pivot washers installed. All it needs now is to be honed and put to work.
Day 4 - Finished – After a little bit more sanding and pin-tapping, this was honed to a screaming-sharp edge. I did the ground work and pre-finish stages on synthetics, and then I went for an extended Nagura progression finish on my big Ozuku.
The shave was incredibly close and smooth; this blade squeegeed 3 days of whiskers off silently; there was zero resistance or hesitation.