The "Junior" Gets An Upgrade

huck1680

huck1680

Joined
Thursday November 10, 2011
Hi Guys

I was looking at my blade supplies the other day and noticed I had about 100 SE blades and thought "Holy crap, I've got to start using the SEs a bit more". I've been using my Schick C razors but nothing else as far as SEs were concerned. So I looked at my Gem Junior and thought "Time for an upgrade". The original handle was, as we all know, a big ugly chunk of plastic. I had made a new one for myself out of Padauk wood and it was ok, nothing special...just ok.

I'd pretty much finished the converted gym/ workshop area out of the attached garage so I got the lathe all set up and got busy. I decided on the baseball bat shape for the handle because of its ergonomic comfort and spun it from an acrylic pen blank I got from TGN. Went for the orange because I'm a big SF Giants fan and didn't have a blue one for the Yankees.

I'm a lot happier with the new handle, it feels great and I'll be using the Junior more often.

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Very nicely done. And it does look a lot better than the original handle.
May be if it was thought of 80 yrs ago the brand would still be with us.
 
Johnus
That's a valid and clever observation. You might think that given the worldwide obsession with sports related paraphenalia some companies might've gotten a heads up earlier on in their corporate history.
 
Hi Huck,

Very nice job on the handles. The wooden one looks like paduak to me - is it?

Love the acrylic handle though, what's it like to turn? I presume you need to scrape rather than cut it in to shape, or would very light cuts with sharp tooling work for this material?

Good job anyway !

Gordon
 
Hi HUck,

Thanks for you reply - if I'd re-read your original post it actually states you used paduak for the wooden handle :blush:

Anyway, how do you fix the handle to the head? Do you have a stock of original handles that you use for the threaded portion of your replacements, or is the thread a standard one?

Thanks in advance,

Gordon
 
Gordon
I go to a hardware store (Home Depot) with the razor head. I then try various screws until I find the one that threads properly. Next I find the thumbscrews
and make sure the first screw threads into that properly. Once I've got the 2 together I leave enough at the top to afix the razor head to. Then I cut the head of the first screw off, drill a hole into the top of the handle and epoxy the shaft of the screw that's below the thumscrew into the hole in the handle. I hope that's reasonably clear. If not let me know and I'll be happy to post some pics of how I did this.
 
Attached is my first attempt at replacing a handle. The Ever Ready razor I used in this experiment was a poor shaver, possibly becuase the head was at a different angle to the handle when compared to other razors I have of this type.

img0076q.jpg


img0075pb.jpg


Admittedly the finish from tooling could do with cleaning up but, for a first attempt, I like it. It is also a great shaver now, as I used it to give me an excellent "1912" shave yesterday!
 
Great idea to make larger handle for the 1912. It really updates it for modern use.
Both this and the one for the Jr would be great sellers.
 
Thanks Huck,

I didn't notice the resemblance to a marital aid until you pointed it out. The shape was the result of a bit of a "dig in" when trying to turn a sphere on the handle end.
 
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