Thread: 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.



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.



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.

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...

Good Luck!

Both survived the heat treatment!

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.



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.