Restoration - No-brand Solingen ⅝ SR

rbscebu

rbscebu

Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2020
Location
Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, Australia
@Holiday has provided me with a SR to restore and PIF. There are no manufacturer markings on the blade other than

BEST QUALITY
SILVER STEEL
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After WWII, many SRs were made in Germany as souvenirs for soldiers of the occupying forces to take home with them. Most of these SRs had no manufacturer's marking. My thoughts are that this SR is one of those.

The blade is in reasonably good nick with just a few water stains. These stains should fairly easily polish out. The plastic scales are another matter. I don't know what has been done to the scales. There is an interference fit between the blade's point and the plastic wedge. The wedge-end of the scales appears to have been excessively heated that has distorted the shape of the scales and the wedge. The pivot-pin ends of the scales are of different lengths, by about 1mm.

Before PIFing this SR, I will clean up the blade, fit a new set of scales and hone it to shave-ready. This restoration project will be documented in this thread. Here is the SR as received:

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Unpinning the Blade
First is to unpin the blade from it's scales. I am going to try and save the original pin collars but if that fails, I have other suitable collars. I will start by trying to drill the "head" off each pin using a 1.6mm drill bit in a Dremel mounted in a Dremel drill press. My Dremel normally has a minimum speed if 10k rpm, far to fast for the delicate work at hand. I have designed and assembled a variable speed control that brings the rpm down to a much more manageable speed.

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I was able to save three of the four collars. The one lost was on the wedge pin.
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The blade is looking pretty good all over, including the pivot-pin area. All should clean up well.
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Those who follow me, should know by now that I am a very slow learner. Again I forgot to tape the edge and have a cut on my finger.
 
Scales Selection
I have decided to scale this SR in wattle timber. Knowing this timber's propensity to wax the blade, I will treat the inside surfaces of the scales with CA. I selected a nice blank of wattle timber and decided which sides will be inside and outside. The blank is about 45mm x 195mm x 3mm thick.
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The inside scale surface was given three very thin coats of CA, allowing about 30 minutes between coats to harden. Between coats 1, 2 and 3, the surface was sanded smooth with 240grit W&D. After the third coat, the surface was sanded with 320, 600 1K and 2k grits W&D before a final polish with Autosol. Looking good now and that should seal the timber surface.
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That's it for now. I have a doctor's appointment in town that I had to wait 25 days for so don't want to miss it. While in town, I will post @CTP's PIF to him.

Tomorrow I will do some work on cleaning up and honing my next PIF, a rather special Codman "Bengall" from @Holiday.
 
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I have a razor that I think is very similar, if not identical to the one you are restoring.

Mine was probably NOS when it came to me, but at the time, right at the beginning of my SR journey, I didn't appreciate the find. I honed it, probably more than
what was necessary, and it still shaves great. Absolutely my best razor in that size.

I read somewhere that many of these so-called Solingen orphans were produced by excellent craftsmen, out of work after the war. Many set up shop at home and produced these razors without a makers mark.

Love mine.
 
Jaco said:
I have a razor that I think is very similar, if not identical to the one you are restoring.

Mine was probably NOS when it came to me, but at the time, right at the beginning of my SR journey, I didn't appreciate the find. I honed it, probably more than
what was necessary, and it still shaves great. Absolutely my best razor in that size.

I read somewhere that many of these so-called Solingen orphans were produced by excellent craftsmen, out of work after the war. Many set up shop at home and produced these razors without a makers mark.

Love mine.
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I can relate. I have restored countless of Solingen orphans and I am yet to find a bad Solingen, branded or not. There are better ones, certainly, but not bad ones, whereas I have come across many an English dud.
 
The pivot pin whole was reasonably round. I still filled the Ø2.4mm hole with epoxyweld and drilled a new Ø1.6mm pivot hole. Yes, I have taped the edge for my own protection.
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This morning I cut the scales blank in half and stuck the two pieces together using thin double-sided tape, CA finished sides (inside surfaces) together. The scales profile was then marked out and the scales cut to shape with a fret saw before sanding to their final shape. Once I was happy with the scales smoothness, I drilled the pivot-pin hole and applied six applications of beeswax, polishing between each application. These scales are now looking beautiful.
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Tomorrow I will work on cleaning up the blade. Wednesday will be making the lead wedge and hopefully putting it all together. If I can't get it all finished Wednesday, it may have to wait for a while as I undergo some day-surgery Wednesday afternoon.
 
Here is mine.
It's only after taking a photo and looking at an enlarged picture that I realised how bad a honing job I did. The bevel is very wonky on this side, perfect on the back :eek:. Shaves perfect. Five years ago, probably the second or third razor I ever honed. I will have to fix it now that I know.

https://imgur.com/a/3LniWIr
 
rbscebu said:
I was able to save three of the four collars. The one lost was on the wedge pin.
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Hi @rbscebu I do not have anywhere near as much experience as yourself or @Mastropiero in removing razor scales but have had some success with filing the pin and tapping through the collar enough to grab with pliers from the other end and just wondering why you both prefer to drill out the pin?
 
Holiday said:
Hi @rbscebu I do not have anywhere near as much experience as yourself or @Mastropiero in removing razor scales but have had some success with filing the pin and tapping through the collar enough to grab with pliers from the other end and just wondering why you both prefer to drill out the pin?
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It is another way of doing it, the problem is that with filing you are pretty much guaranteed you will not save the collars.

I might have mentioned, if I want to keep the collars, I will drill the pin out, and even then there's no guarantee you won't mark the collar with the drill. If I don't care about saving them, I probably mentioned I use flush cutters; first I remove the collar (on some razors they pop out almost instantly), then I use a slightly heavier flush cutter to chop off the head of the pin, and then I proceed to tap it out.

Drawbacks? Sometimes, if the head is really hammered in and the collar is stuck, the cutters will bite into the scales, leaving a mark. It is not a big deal, you sand it with W/D and that's it.

Your method of filing the head is equally valid, and I have used it many a time. I prefer mine, just because it takes less time.

Drawbacks of filing the head? Same as with my method. You either are very careful and keep the file perfectly parallel to the horizontal, or you will end up biting with the file into the scale. I find that file marks are slightly more difficult to remove with W/D than the marks left with my flush cutters.
 
I was restoring some ivory scaled razors and was terrified of damaging the scales. I didn't want to risk filing or drilling. Someone suggested to me to try to saw through the pins between the scales and the blade with a jewellers saw. I tried it and it worked great.
 
Jaco said:
I was restoring some ivory scaled razors and was terrified of damaging the scales. I didn't want to risk filing or drilling. Someone suggested to me to try to saw through the pins between the scales and the blade with a jewellers saw. I tried it and it worked great.
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Correct, I have gone a few times this road, precisely in your situation. However, depending on how tight the scales are pinned, it can get slightly dangerous, I value my hands way too much to risk doing it too often 🤣
 
I finished it off today, other than an Autosol polish and honing.
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Now I have a big problem. This rescale is the best I have ever done and I am truly in love with it. The scales look and feel absolutely wonderful. For this SR I would give up all of my girlfriends!

It is going to be very hard to bring myself to PIF this razor. I think what I will have to do is enter my own PIF and just hope that I win. The thread for PIFfing this SR will be posted once my current Bengall PIF is won.
 
rbscebu said:
I didn't have the willpower to wait until Saturday to first shave with this SR. The Ralf Aust got put away and this morning I shaved with the restored Solingen SR.

All I can say is ahhhhh!

@Holiday, I promise that this SR will be PIFed, it just may have to be done by the executor of my estate 🥰.
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Considering all the generous work you are doing promoting straight shaving I would actually prefer you to hold on to a few (y)
 
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