I just wanted to share my last little project of the year. I restored an old IXL straight razor blade some time ago, and finally got around to making scales for it. I decided to document by taking pictures of the process. While it is sometimes more rewarding to make scales by hand, and sometimes I still do, it is also rewarding to design and use a CNC for precision and repeatability. And now that I have a 3d model, I can easily scale to any size for different straight razor blades.
Black buffalo horn blank, peening hardware, and restored IXL straight razor blade.
The buffalo horn blank is warped and requires flattening. I use a simple router sled for this step.
The buffalo horn blank is now flat and is set to the correct thickness for the next step on the mini-CNC.
I've created a 3d model of the original broken scales for use on the mini-CNC.
After multiple passes, the scales are ready for sanding and buffing.
Almost ready for peening. First, I need to melt some lead for the wedge. A lead fishing weight does the trick.
The lead wedge is glued and drilled to one scale, and the peening begins.
After some honing, this will be tomorrow's last shave of 2023.
Black buffalo horn blank, peening hardware, and restored IXL straight razor blade.
The buffalo horn blank is warped and requires flattening. I use a simple router sled for this step.
The buffalo horn blank is now flat and is set to the correct thickness for the next step on the mini-CNC.
I've created a 3d model of the original broken scales for use on the mini-CNC.
After multiple passes, the scales are ready for sanding and buffing.
Almost ready for peening. First, I need to melt some lead for the wedge. A lead fishing weight does the trick.
The lead wedge is glued and drilled to one scale, and the peening begins.
After some honing, this will be tomorrow's last shave of 2023.