Pendray wootz blades for Mike and me

I am making a pendray wootz razor for @Mike Blue . And another for myself. I started with the rightmost blank in the picture. It weighed 260 grams. I started out with 5 pieces. 2 got made into razors, and an offcut got made into a cutting edge for a razor. That left me with 3. Then Mike sold me the last 2 pieces he had, bringing me back to 5. And now one of these is going to become a razor for Mike and for me, thanks to so careful precision forging.

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First i drew it out until it was 5/8 by 1/4 and 10" long. I did that by hand because wootz and presses are not best friends. At least not for small cross sections. Then i cut it in 2 identical pieces.

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And then i carefully forged those pieces into near identical razors. One weighs 114 grams, the other 118. There is very little spare material in these blanks. Normally I am slightly more wasteful but i really wanted to get 2 full razors out of that piece of steel. Pretty happy so far.

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keep us updated

Will do. I am leaning towards something like a reynolds humpback. For the scales idk yet. Possibly something fossil with blue in it.

This is all the pre - heattreatment work done on my Pendray wootz razors project They're still as identical as i can make them. Even the jimping lines up between them. I've decided that I am going to follow my latest understanding about wootz carbides and do a water quench. I am at the same time excited and scared. Excited because the pattern should have an even bigger contrast than the other Pendray razors I made yet. Scared because water quenching is a tricky and sensitive process and I am dreading hearing a 4 digit ping.

I have taken a number of safety precautions I don't normally take. I sanded the hollows with a worn 120 grit belt, and rounded the edge, polished the edge, and smoothed the barbers notch on the inside. The idea is to avoid any and all stress risers. Normally I would not do this because it's not truly necessary if you quench right. But it would suck beyond belief to hear a ping and then say, you know, I should have polished the edge instead of leaving that grinding scratch...

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Good Luck!

Both survived the heat treatment!

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This is during finish grinding, 120 grit, no etching whatsoever! The carbides are so strong I can just see them without etching. The patterning on the razors for Mike and me is going to be awesome.

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Aside from the nice carbides, you can see it auto hamoned during quench. The blade hollows were hard completely on the outside. When I started grinding, everything sparked. As soon as I ground through the surface, the hollows became soft at the spine.