Thread: Iwasaki western style

Originally Posted by mainaman

Tamahagane @ HRC ~67, if I understand the properties of the steel correctly, that might prove as tough as a wedge to set a bevel, but then the edge retention would be phenomenal. I hope Jim tells us if at least the edge retention part is true?

Tamahagane is not necessarily harder. It all depends on the heat treatment. For a katana I thought the rule of thumb was 60-40. 60 HRC for the cutting edge and 40 for the spine.

67 would be virtually impossible to hone, and extremely brittle on a hollow ground razor. So has a knife or cutter that is HRC 67. IIRC he called it virtually defective. It was nearly impossible to hone and very brittle so the edge would crumble away when used incorrectly. I doubt a razors edge on 67 HRC would last long (if you could get it shaveready).

Originally Posted by Bruno

Tamahagane is not necessarily harder. It all depends on the heat treatment. For a katana I thought the rule of thumb was 60-40. 60 HRC for the cutting edge and 40 for the spine.

67 would be virtually impossible to hone, and extremely brittle on a hollow ground razor. So has a knife or cutter that is HRC 67. IIRC he called it virtually defective. It was nearly impossible to hone and very brittle so the edge would crumble away when used incorrectly. I doubt a razors edge on 67 HRC would last long (if you could get it shaveready).

Yes this might or might not be true (I know there are traditional Japanese knives hardened to HRC67 which do not chip at all). I was hoping someone that owns one of those razors will fill us in

Originally Posted by dave5225

I would want more than plain , black plastic scales for that kind of money . I would think that if the blade is so special , that the razor would have an awesome set of scales .

I have 2 "plain" Iwasaki as well as other Japanese razors-I had no problem selling the Livi ( Japanese inspired ). Having a worked spine and ostentatious decor does not amount to an orgasmic shave-nor does having stag horn scales or MOP. I'm more function over fashion. To each his own.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/japan...amahagane.html

Originally Posted by mainaman

Yes this might or might not be true (I know there are traditional Japanese knives hardened to HRC67 which do not chip at all). I was hoping someone that owns one of those razors will fill us in

They will probably not chip due to having a wide bevel angle and absence of a hollow grind. And even then they will probably chip if used incorrectly, where a 'softer' knife will be more forgiving.

Originally Posted by Bruno

They will probably not chip due to having a wide bevel angle and absence of a hollow grind. And even then they will probably chip if used incorrectly, where a 'softer' knife will be more forgiving.

Knives chip fairly easy if you are not careful, even when sharpening. That is not the point, I was just looking for confirmation or dismissal of the assumption, that based on the info given by the vendor, the razor will be very hard to sharpen and will hold the edge longer. I am inclined to think that if indeed the hardness is 67, the razor smith knew what they were doing and the razor would not chip. I agree that such hardness leads to very brittle steel, and there is a ton of exmples. Also, although the vendor is very reputable, the info on the hardness is second hand at best, he says the hardness is 67, but he got the number from the seller in Japan so not much credibility there. I was hoping someone with experience with those razors would tell us what is the real deal.

All I can tell you is this: This razor was a bitch to hone. It took FOREVER, and I wasn't even setting a bevel--just smoothing out an edge I bunged up when polishing the blade.

Honing on heavy slurry, it took much more than twice as long as any other razor I've honed to see any darkening (a sign of steel being removed) and the slurry never got as dark as with other razors. And it took several honing rounds to get the edge to where I wanted it. But it's there now...for how long, I have no idea. Ask me in 1032 shaves.

As for 67rhc, well, I'm pretty sure the seller got the razor from a retired barber (it sounds very much like the same place I got mine...) so I'm wondering how much that barber knows about the Rockwell scale.

If I recall correctly from my sword as religion days; tamahagane is thought to be better suited to high hardness than other simple carbon steel (in general)

It appears completely reasonable that such statements arose from Iwasaki's work. At 67 though? Surely only suited to razors.

Now I wonder what our English and American ironmongers would('ve) say to this thing about German steel being the one to beat!?

I talked to tool seller about tamahagane planes some time back, as he had a couple for sale. Regarding edge retention he said it would be similar to white steel to very good Swedish steel.

It is interesting that Iwasaki chose the razor to show what Jp steel could do.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Tamahagane is not necessarily harder. It all depends on the heat treatment. For a katana I thought the rule of thumb was 60-40. 60 HRC for the cutting edge and 40 for the spine.

67 would be virtually impossible to hone, and extremely brittle on a hollow ground razor. So has a knife or cutter that is HRC 67. IIRC he called it virtually defective. It was nearly impossible to hone and very brittle so the edge would crumble away when used incorrectly. I doubt a razors edge on 67 HRC would last long (if you could get it shaveready).

Maybe. Different steels will take different levels of hardness without getting brittle. I've got an O1 blade from Robt Williams that is 65HRC and shaves and hold an edge fine, and had a stainless blade that would chip against my whiskers at only 64HRC.

I'm not sure how relevant So's knife is. It may well be that a tamahagane knife would be too brittle at 67 HRC while a razor would not be. Many western-made razors are much harder than knives of the same vintage, and are extremely brittle and will utterly shatter if dropped on the floor, yet shave and hold and edge extremely well.

I was playing with my western-styled tamahagane razor the other day and it's very hard indeed. Not sure how hard exactly, but it seems to be harder than my 65HRC Robt Williams razor. A few years ago I took my Chronik to a local lab for Rockwell testing but I'm not terribly interested in getting my tamahagane razor onto a tester, since the rib on mine is too small to test on, it's very thin and vestigial like the TI Silverwing, so they'd have to test it on the blade itself and that's just asking for trouble. Maybe if I had two of them...

Originally Posted by mparker762

I was playing with my western-styled tamahagane razor the other day and it's very hard indeed. Not sure how hard exactly, but it seems to be harder than my 65HRC Robt Williams razor. A few years ago I took my Chronik to a local lab for Rockwell testing but I'm not terribly interested in getting my tamahagane razor onto a tester, since the rib on mine is too small to test on, it's very thin and vestigial like the TI Silverwing, so they'd have to test it on the blade itself and that's just asking for trouble. Maybe if I had two of them...

The resulting 'ting' or 'click' would probably be the most gutwrenching sound you'd ever hear

Just received a western Iwasaki from So for a cleanup. Should be fun.
The box has a marking on it reading HV 860. This is a hardness rating based on the Vickers scale & corresponds to HRC 65. It is no myth that these are hard steel.
mparker , maybe you have a similar marking on your one's box