Thread: Saved blade, suminagashi predator in patriot kirinite red white and blue

I decided to make another predator razor in suminagashi, and made the mistake of grinding too thin before heat treatment. As a result, the edge had not hardened. I redid the heat treatment, outsmarted myself and while the edge had hardened and the blade hollows were good, the blade itself had literally cracked tail to toe. You can read the technical details here in the forge thread.



Still, the business part of the blade was ok so it seemed like a waste not to finish it, since it would still be a decent shaver. I took the blade by the tang and hammered it on my anvil a couple of times with the spine, to verify that it was still solid enough to be functional. As luck had it, I had a piece of kirinite that was a leftover from another build, that was just about big enough. So I decided to finish the build and turn it into a functioning razor.

As you can see from the pics, the heat treament issues also influenced the tang. It didn't etch as nice as the blade hollows. However, I didn't let that deter me. Discarding the blade because of that would be like cancelling the rebuild of a broken old muscle car (yes I'm a fan of gas monkey garage) because there is an issue with the windscreen wiper.

Incidentally, I believe in the value of doing everything possible to save a blade. It teaches humility, and forces you to be creative. Fixing things is a good learning opportunity.