Last week I saw what I strongly suspected to be an Aristocrat #16 on EBay labelled with the non-descript description of 'Gillette Razor Made In England'. I've been after a #16 at a reasonable price for while, so I set my autosnipe at £45 and left it at that.
The razor just looked a bit grotty, but what I didn't realise was that the seller later added a note saying it was faulty in that the handle turned round by itself. Anyway my autosnipe did it's job and I hauled the razor in for £41. On arrival whilst the cosmetic condition was exactly as expected, it was clear that the razor was unusable as the head was not stable and using the TTO caused it to do all sorts of weird things.
Undeterred by a lot of warnings online that English Aristocrats are difficult to repair and reassemble successfully, I embarked on my first ever repair and restoration project. I actually dismantled the razor on my desk at work by hand and then left the components to soak in coffee mug of hot soapy water all day. Doing this I also noticed that the centre bar was also kinked.
On arrival at home this evening I set about my task. It was obvious that loose crimping was the cause of the head movement, so I carefully rested the handle and baseplate on a block of wood and using a hefty screwdriver and hammer, managed to reseal the crimping. Next the centre bar. Once again resting it on a piece of wood, applying a careful blow to the holding screw, I managed to flatten out the kink.
Job done, so now time to reassemble. After a little bit of trial and error I concluded that keeping the silo doors off until the centre bar was fixed and the TTO in open position was the way to go. Actually the hardest part was getting the silo doors on again.
To finish, by pure coincidence I picked up a tube of Peek polish in Tesco last night reduced by 50% to £1.50. This polish is seriously good stuff and made short work of removing oxides and other accumulated crud which hadn't come off with soap and water.
In the end I'm as happy as Larry as what could have turned out to be a total waste of money turned out to be a fully functioning #16 in extremely good condition. Less than 5% plate loss and no bumps or bashes, the TTO is smooth and the blade gap is even.
The razor just looked a bit grotty, but what I didn't realise was that the seller later added a note saying it was faulty in that the handle turned round by itself. Anyway my autosnipe did it's job and I hauled the razor in for £41. On arrival whilst the cosmetic condition was exactly as expected, it was clear that the razor was unusable as the head was not stable and using the TTO caused it to do all sorts of weird things.
Undeterred by a lot of warnings online that English Aristocrats are difficult to repair and reassemble successfully, I embarked on my first ever repair and restoration project. I actually dismantled the razor on my desk at work by hand and then left the components to soak in coffee mug of hot soapy water all day. Doing this I also noticed that the centre bar was also kinked.
On arrival at home this evening I set about my task. It was obvious that loose crimping was the cause of the head movement, so I carefully rested the handle and baseplate on a block of wood and using a hefty screwdriver and hammer, managed to reseal the crimping. Next the centre bar. Once again resting it on a piece of wood, applying a careful blow to the holding screw, I managed to flatten out the kink.
Job done, so now time to reassemble. After a little bit of trial and error I concluded that keeping the silo doors off until the centre bar was fixed and the TTO in open position was the way to go. Actually the hardest part was getting the silo doors on again.
To finish, by pure coincidence I picked up a tube of Peek polish in Tesco last night reduced by 50% to £1.50. This polish is seriously good stuff and made short work of removing oxides and other accumulated crud which hadn't come off with soap and water.
In the end I'm as happy as Larry as what could have turned out to be a total waste of money turned out to be a fully functioning #16 in extremely good condition. Less than 5% plate loss and no bumps or bashes, the TTO is smooth and the blade gap is even.
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