Thread: A modern take on the Japanese razor...

Originally Posted by tjiscooler

That is just beautiful work! How do you do your clay treatment? Could you get the same or similar results with an edge quench?

Very similar to the traditional Japanese method, but I use a refractory mortar instead of actual clay.

No, you would get a straight line hamon with an edge quench, and probably less of the hazy area. At least that is my experience.

[quote=Russel Baldridge;220332]The whole blade was at critical temperature and all of it got quenched, so the blade is fully hardened from heel to toe but I guess I was a little too crazy with the clay this time.

The hamon doesn't actually run off the edge, it goes into the bevel and does not affect the cutting edge.


My bad, It can be hard to tell from pics.
I still want one.
Travelling for a a couple of days but will be in touch soon.

Yeah, you can't tell from the pic. I only know because I etched it before the bevel setting, otherwise I'd have thought the same thing.

On the other hand, I will probably use this blade as a testing subject after I put some good use on it. Since the hardened steel is so minimal at the heel I'll see what happens if I do a re-heat-treat, could be of use to guys that accidentally over temper a blade while grinding it.

THAT looks like something from the future
How much would you want for one of them Star Wars razors?

Ant new pics?

Soon!

I've been putting these razors to the test, to be sure they'll stand up to regular use and have been trying out various bevel angles to see which I like more. Pretty time consuming for the time being.

that looks awesome, now you need to send it to me so I can try it out

OK, so I've tried being patient, but to no avail....

So....


We want pics!

We want pics!

We want pics!

We want pics!

You want new pics?

FINE!!!!!!!



This is what happens when you've worked on a blade for too long and just when you think you've got the grind, geometry, profile and hamon exactly how you want them, it forms a hairline crack through the edge when you heat treat it.

And there's no salvaging an edge cracked blade, so I bent it to get a good look at the grain structure in a few more spots (it only cracked in one place before I bent it).

I think the grain of the steel is pretty good, it just looks like a uniform satin gray color. The last pic is a comparison of the steel's grain structure between a piece that was broken from the raw bar stock, straight from the steel mill (bottom strip), and a piece that broke off of the blade after the forging and grain refinement processes (thanks due to Mike Blue and a few others for pointers).

Enjoy! I sure did!

Thanks for the post it was very interesting. It is good to see failures along with all of the successful projects. Was the blade differentially hardened or does the hamon take care of that by insulating the spine? The grain pictures were informative.

Charlie