The Goods! Straight Razor Hobbyist Gallery

[MileMarker60]

First is made of O1 steel, 6/8 with a 2" cutting edge.

The next is made of ATS 34 stainless steel. 8/8 with a 1 3/4" cutting edge.
Man what a pain to grind. The honing wasn't terrible but grinding to to shape was a beast..lol
I'll be trying a different SS before I bust out another piece of this..lol

 

[mycarver]

A fellow board member sent me this razor which at first glance was in nice shape except for the tip. Here a small chip in the edge lead to a crack into the blade. Rather than just slice off the end we decided on a Spanish point which would add something to the lines as well as take care of the crack. While I was at it , and since it's no longer "stock" he wondered if I couldn't work on the spine and or shaft with some mod's. Since there isn't much meat on the spine I turned my attention to the shaft. Here I felt the shape was rather heavy and blocky looking overall. I lightened it up visually by adding two cuts into the top of the shaft and on the bottom swept the steel up to the line from the factory which ran above the thumb notch . Doing this allowed me to keep details from the factory as well as make a more pleasing shape.
Once that was done I polished everything .
On to the scales I just got a beautiful translucent Honey Horn with the dark streaks as well as a hint of rusty red in areas. I picked out sections that allowed me to have the wedge end dark and have the pin ends translucent.
He wondered about the ability to use two pins on the wedge end, but considering the size of the blade and scales i thought this might be a bit much. Instead I used double stacked washers for a bit of eye appeal on the wedge end and a single on the hinge end.
He also asked if the wedge couldn't be dressed up a bit with the addition of brass. With the thinness of this blade and how it would sit in the scales I decided against layering brass on the wedge since it would either get too narrow ( the actual wedge) or too bulky which wouldn't allow the blade to sit at a nice height in the scales. Instead I inlaid brass into the inner side of the scales giving me the look of a brass wrapped wedge without adding to it's thickness or taking away from the width of the wedge itself. And I didn't want to line the entire scale with brass. For the wedge I used ivory as it contrasts nicely with the scales and at the same time draws your eye to the wedge details themselves.

 

[mycarver]

Some final shots,,,

 

[mycarver]

and the wedge,,,

 

[paco664]

made this at work... there is still a tad of grinding to do on it... just to completely even things up but all in all i am very very very happy with the outcome...

it is made from "spring steel".. literally the leaf spring off a pickup truck.... i will make 90% of my future razors from this steel because i really enjoy working with it.... the heat treat was easy enough... heat to non-magnetic and quench in oil... easy peasy... it is HARD... it took forever to get a good bevel but once set it was shave ready in 10mins.... had a nice 2 pass with touchup shave with it... DFS...

as i have said 10000 times...... there is beauty in the simple things....

as you can see in a couple of the photos there is still a bit of uneven grinding... i will straighten that out tomorrow....

i guess it ain't too bad for a gorilla with a grinder.... lol.... thanks for looking... be gentle...

 

[Joe Edson]

Decided to make myself a razor out of some new steel I was trying out.

This one is make from Hitachi White Paper steel. It is a thin piece of white paper steel with super soft steel folded over it and the white steel only extending halfway into the blade.

I actually didn't know the soft steel was folded as such, but once seeing it I decided to etch the blade and bring out the layers. The tang/spine area are all finished to a mirror finish and I left the blade at a satin finish for the etch.

The file work is something new I tried and is kind of a vine pattern. Thanks to Bill Ellis' thread on how he does file work for showing me how to do this. Definitely was very difficult and hard to finish sand. I like the way it came out.

After hardening, suggested tempering was 400° for a HRC of 63. I double tempered at 385° hoping to get 63-64 HRC for my hardest razor yet. I took it to the chosera 400 and then moved onto the 1K. At this point I started to get worried, as I couldn't establish a bevel as the edge kept microchipping. I was very worried at this point and thought about tempering it again at a higher temperature, but before that I pulled out some 12 um lapping film to give it a go. Needless to say, in 5 minutes I had a bevel shaving arm hair nicely with no microchips to boot. I decided to finish up honing on lapping film progressing to 0.3 um finish.

First shave WTG and it clearly was the most keen razor I ever put to my face. Ultra light pressure ala a Kamisori was needed. Definitely different than any other carbon steel I've used. The shave itself was fine, but the edge was a little too much for me, so the next day I took it to my Wakasa JNat that I normally use on kamisori's and tweaked the edge a bit. Resulting shave was as smooth as can be.

Measures about 13/16 to 7/8 wide and the scales are made from silver twill G10 with a blue/black recon stone wedge.

Looking forward to this one in the rotation. Thanks for looking!

 

[Seraphim]

new origami style scales.

Other than that, just another Gold Dollar.

 

[life2short1971]

Look like tire tread from mud grips....i lived in the woods too long.Let me also add that you did a great job and it looks fantastic! Very Nice Indeed!

 

[Pkrankow]

I like the spine. Very nice.

Phil

 

[TonyN]

Really nice work!

 

[trick420]

Man, you come up with the coolest scale patterns... Me likey. Me want...

 

[paco664]

just a photo of a few things laying around my house.....

 

[Seraphim]

Squarepoint, doubleswoop back, thumbnotch, curly cherry over acrylic scales, floro wedge.

 

[paco664]

Now that is a beauty....

 

[hitemfrank]

Looks good as always

 

[jgkeegan]

Beautiful. I'd want it, except you's have to send along a human to strop and sharpen it for you.

 

[Seraphim]

Shortybone.

2 1/8" length blade. Beveled squarepoint, thumbnotch, SynthBone lined scales.

Short and sweet.

 

[Doc226]

Shortybone.

2 1/8" length blade. Beveled squarepoint, thumbnotch, SynthBone lined scales.

Short and sweet.

I like it. When are you sending it my way?

 

[paco664]

nah... just messing around trying new things.....

gonna stick with just making kamisori's for a while.... i enjoy them.. they are easy to do....

working on getting some different equipment so's i can try a couple more things i wanna do....

 

[Seraphim]

No mods, just a rescale, so doesn't qualify for my "Shenanagins" thread

I had one of these razors a while ago, put out by the "Barbershop" brand. Recently found another, that is in even nicer condition. This baby is brand new, still in the box when I received it. Nice, full hollow, 11/16, made in Spain (anybody know how many makers there were in Spain? Is this a re-branded Jose, or Palmera?), jimps top & bottom.

Anyhow, nice, classy blade, so I went for some classy scales. kingswood with poly coat and floro wedge for just a touch of "bling". I really like the kingswood to work with, plus it looks very nice.

Enough yappin'....