Thread: strange story

Clever old guy!
I heard someone mention hot oil for french fries works as well.

But I do warm my razors under hot water before honing or stropping. You will get better results than working cold steel.

I was watching one of those science channel shows, and the subject was knife making. They were in a knife factory (I think it was Cold Steel's factory) going through the tempering process. The final temper they put on the blade was only 375 degrees, (I think--it was definitely in the 300s, and not Celsius). I was really suprised that the temp was that low, I'd always though you needed to at least get a color change to to really affect steels hardness, or at least be 500 degrees plus. Anyway, I haven't seen the other thread yet, but it sounds like its right.

That would be 190°C
I had 200°C in my books.
Actually no problem for an ordinary household stove.

I am just a hobby knife maker, so take my opinions for what they're worth...I have done a ton of research about the different steels used for various blades, and in this case, it would depend entirely on the steel....but for the age of the man making the claim and the associated age of the razor, I would have to say yes it worked.

I would guess that most of the old barber size/style razors that would have been available to him would have been a "Simple Steel" meaning that it does not have a bunch of other metals added to it, just iron and carbon...These simple steels were much cheaper to manufacture than the other alloy steels available at that time.

The simple steels of today are not exactly the same as what they would have used, but the 1095 steel I use most of the time and another steel called "O-1" would both be about as close to the older razor quality steels as you can get today.

That being said, when I make a blade that I want to have a thin razor quality edge, I temper the entire blade at 400degrees for 2 hours....The only reason I temper this long is to make absolutely sure that the blade is evenly tempered all the way through....If all you wanted to do was soften the edge a bit, this is well within the range of accomplishment for using the cornbread idea since the edge on a razor is so thin. The cornbread would actually serve to keep the edge off of the bottom of the pan so it doesn't get overheated, and help hold in the heat to get a good temper on the thin edge.

I get all of my tempering info from the manufacturer of the steel, and they say 400degrees for the lowest tempering on 1095 steel.
Heat Treating Information

In his book on Japanese tools T. Odate tells the story of a gent complaining about edge chipping, the merchant tells him to set the blade up on a tin roof.

I'm all in on this story as true- that or he really liked cornbread and had many other excuses to get a fresh batch

I don't care if it works, it's a great story!

X

Good story Doc, and because the edge is so thin, it may work a little....