Time for a shorty (Kabrand 415)

[Bevel]

I bought some French razors just before Christmas and, in a lot of 4, one was damaged but I knew about it before buying.
For the price and condition of the others I was ok with that.

I thought one thing I don't have is a shorty so I got to work on the damaged one.
It's a Kabrand 415 Pour Barbedure, the blade had a chunk out of it and, on the reverse, the scale was trashed.


I folded a piece of paper over the spine down to the edge, both sides, and trimmed it at the toe to give me a template of the current toe shape (round but more on that later)


It's Hammer Dremel time with a diamond coated disc.

1. 15 minutes later I had removed 1/2 an inch or 1.5 cm from the 3 inch (7.5cm) blade.
2. The cut was very satisfying and clean.
3. The paper from earlier was used to mark what needed to be trimmed.
I also shortened the scales while I was at it.


1. A quick sanding of the scales got them back in shape but they're quite yellow so I went at them with 0000 steel wool and then metal polish and they came up a lovely cream or off white. the Kabrand inlay also shined up like a new button.
2. Scales cleaned up nicely and I didn't have to unpin the wedge end to get them spotless inside. Marked where the new pivot pin will be. Back to the toe shape of the blade, I'm having second thoughts of restoring the original round toe as I kinda like the current sweep. I'm really in two minds about this.
3. Drilled new holes on a Dremel work station/Drill press which I don't fully trust to drill straight but it went well with perfect alignment.


Tomorrow I'll give the blade a Dialux Orange, Grey and then Green buff but I'm not going to go overboard on this as the blade itself has a lot of honewear and the project is more of a trial run for a much bigger and far more important project to come.
After its had its buff I'll peen and hone so stay tuned for part 2.

 

[Bevel]

Here it is buffed and peened back together with a nickle silver pin.


Compared to a standard 5/8 Dovo.
In hand, you mightn't know it's a shorty as only 1/2 inch is gone, you'd know something was up in the back of your mind but without a direct comparison it could pass you by.


I'll hone it this afternoon and I'll be interested to know how the previous owner got honewear so far up from the edge.

 

[Murdrock]

Wow this came out pretty well!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Bevel]

Thanks.
Just honed it up to 0.1 micron diamond paste and it treetops nicely. I might have a shave with it later to test.
Not sure how the previous owner got those honemarks on there as the bevel is tiny, maybe they were the original grinding but the spine-ware says otherwise. My hone marks, on the spine, are above the original so I actually have no idea how they got like that as where my marks are it shouldn't allow them any lower than they are. I'd guess someone tried to regrind but then again there is a very faint "Pour Barbe dure" on the blade so that rules that out. They must have tried to sharpen it on one of those V-shaped knife sharpeners.
With a spine of 5.05mm and a width of 15.32 it gives a bevel angle of 18.97 so it's in the ball park.


As I said before this was more of a practice run for a more important shorty I have to do sometime in the future that I really don't want to mess up. This little fellas sacrifice has ironed out most problems I'm likely to encounter.