Thread: Roman Shaver

I think somebody ought to buy it and send it to Lynn for a honing.....


John P.

Originally Posted by JohnP

I think somebody ought to buy it and send it to Lynn for a honing.....


John P.

I'd love to see his face when he gets it in the mail anyway. And i be it'll come back with an edge that makes the hair run away by itself.

I think if he put a shaving edge on THAT, not only is he the MASTER honemeister, but that would probably be the best deal anyone could get for just 20 bucks...
money WELL spent!
John P.
I admit, though, I am a little curious now, as to how Iron or bronze would shave...

Originally Posted by JohnP

I admit, though, I am a little curious now, as to how Iron or bronze would shave...

Well, the Romans had steel, they just didn't know it. But if you read their engineering texts, there's plenty of places where they specify how long the iron for a particular part should be cooked in a fire, which would have roughly correlated to the carbon content as the iron absorbed the carbon from the flames.

I've got a few of these around the house, I'll see if I can dig up an example where the well-cooked iron was specified.

(There's some interesting stuff in those old documents, there's this one guy who was trying to make an air spring using a bronze piston and cylinder, but he was using oil-soaked leather gaskets to get a good seal and his contraption kept exploding if he compressed the spring too much. Diesel effect, anyone?)