Scales Issue?

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59
Recently acquired a pitted and tarnished straight, stamped with makers mark "A. Grissolange, Thiers, France"

Only paid loose change for it - bought with the intention of practicing clean up and polishing of the blade surface, starting out with some coarser wet/dry paper and working through to a metal polish finish. Doesn't really matter if I never get an edge on it because of tbe pitting near the blade edge.

My question relates to the scales. They're plastic, but I don't know what material - maybe celluloid? In the pic you'll see the "bubbling" on the surface. Although random, it is uniform, and occurs on both sides, but not the edges or inner surface. Do you think this is how they were manufactured originally, or is it an age / degradation thing. I've read about "gassing and cell rot" from celluloid scales. Might this be an example? 20210322_100450.jpg20210322_100500.jpg
 
Do you have any photos of the blade before you started the clean-up? Gassing, or cell rot, typically causes pitting on the blade contained within the scales but not the uncovered part - so the pitting has a defined upper edge. If you blade was not like this the you can probably discount cell rot. I’ve never seen scales like this - which is not to say they were not designed that way, but if you have any doubts it definitely best to get rid of them and make sure they don’t come into contact with any other celluloid razors you may have.
 
Hi @UKRob , thanks for reply. Below is a couple of pics of what I'm calling the "non-face" side. The blade and the tang. All I've done on this side is wipe over with some autosol to see what I've got. Yes the pitting is worse on the part of the blade that would be covered by the scales, but is also present up on the spine and top half of tang. When I got the blade, there was no red rust, just the pitting, tarnish and what I'm calling a bit of "crazy paving" just on the very surface of the steel. (Of course, might have been cleaned off by someone else)

No discernible smell to the scales or any kind of flaky material or powdery residue on them.

I've put the razor into its own version of lockdown isolation!

Thanks again for your help.

Mike20210322_100430.jpg20210322_100440.jpg
 
There does appear to be a definite line where the scales covered the blade which suggests the scales are shot. I would remove them and throw them away - you can then use the blade to practice your restoration skills. I always found hand sanding was easier without scales anyway.
Regarding the pitting around the bevel area - it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t set a good bevel. In my experience it’s pretty rare for pitting to be so deep as to make the bevel unviable so you could also use this razor as a good once to practice bevel setting.
 
Thanks Rob. Advice appreciated.

Scales off and tucked away in a sealed freezer bag, so I can trace around them as a template in the future. Guess making and pinning a new set of scales will be the summer project!

Was already planning a bevel set to see how the edge holds. But good to know there's a reasonable chance of rescuing it. All good fun and new stuff to learn, for less than a couple of cups of coffee and my time :)
 
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