11-23-2021, 03:17 AM
(11-23-2021, 02:59 AM)Old Sarge Wrote:(11-23-2021, 02:28 AM)GAW9576 Wrote: My 8 year old son picked me up a Gem Featherweight for my birthday at an antique store with the money he gets from doing chores.
Here's what it looked like when he gave it to me.
He hung out with me while I cleaned it up today. The top cap was a a little bit pitted plus I'm a bit jealous of Old Sarge and the bare brass top cap on his 1914 little lather catcher. The combination caused me to spend an inordinate amount of time hand sanding the top cap of the Featherweight down to bare brass. Here are the results.
BTW Old Sarge I never did ask how you got your top cap to bare brass. The finish doesn't look sanded.
That's a sweet looking razor, Greg! How great you and your son could bond over that. In two of the shots I can see subtle sanding texture, which adds personality! Sounds like wishing you a Happy Birthday is in order...so, Happy Birthday! (birthday emoji here)
When I purchased both the Little Lather Catcher (future steampunkified) and a Damaskeene, they looked in rough shape in the Ebay photos. I spent a lot of time researching the interwebs for tips on cleaning them up. There was some discussion of using Bar Keeper's Friend to clean a razor, but most folks pushed back sayin it was too corrosive. As I started cleaning the 1914 with soapy water and then scrubbing bubbles, it became apparent that the plating was too damaged to survive. We use BKF to clean our sink, so I mixed it into a paste and used a toothbrush/brass brush. Here's my post with the before shots.
Yeah I have really been trying to bond with him more lately. I never got along with most younger boys or very many boys my age growing up so it has been more difficult than bonding with my daughters. I dated a lot of different girls growing up so I guess I just learned how to get along with them more naturally.
OK. I remember seeing the post but forgot how rough it was. Looks like most of the plating was already gone. I tried BKF and it didn't do much if anything to the plating on the Featherweight. It did clean it a bit but didn't remove any that I could see. Maybe the 1914 is a different kind of plating. Like silver. I used BKF on a toasted Gold wash years ago and it removed every lats bit of it in seconds. Maybe it does that to silver plating too.? And the FW is probably chrome plated.?