Thread: Hammer finish folding razor

Lately I have been trying to forge my razor close to the actual intended size to minimize the amount of grinding needed, and to increase my skill with the hammer. To that effect, I wanted to do a hammer finish razor; a standard folding razor this time, instead of the ones with the fixed handle.

This is actually harder than it seems. A hammer finish razor has to be completely geometrically correct, since one of the rules is that you can't touch it with a grinder to correct the shape. This means everything has to be aligned symmetrically, including the taper of the tang. This is tricky. With a fixed handle razor, that doesn't matter as much because it's a handle and any small irregularities don't influence how you hold it. At the end I used a ball peen hammer to texture the surface a bit.

And mounting it in the scales was not a picknick either. When I grind a razor to shape, I can adjust the sides of the tang so that they are perfectly parallel at the pivot hole, making it easy to mount scales. With this razor, the sides of the tang are textured, and not entirely symmetrical. Not that you'd see it, but enough that the scales were not happy at first. It took a bit of work on the scales to make them align.

The end result was ok for a first try. The tail could have been a bit more slender I suppose, but I am happy with the result.

Its beautiful, I really want to know how it shaves so you can send it to me then I gonna tell you

Thats a nice first attempt Bruno.

Cool razor. Just out of curiosity, where does the tang tapering start in relation to the pivot hole location?

The tang starts tapering at the spine, where the edge ends.

Yeah, that would make getting it "flat" a challenge.

Really beautiful.
Please:
What is the steel?
What size wheel do you grind with?

That looks great Bruno. I got that song in my head :<0) HAMMER TIME ! I know the trick is well placed hits and as few as possible. Looks like you got it.

Originally Posted by IndependenceRazor1

Really beautiful.
Please:
What is the steel?
What size wheel do you grind with?

That is O2 tool steel, and I use a 4" wheel on almost everything.

I've always liked the "out of the forge" look & you did an outstanding job. I too have a small ball peen hammer for that extra little help. I've got to get back to making some more razors...