I finally finished my first self made razor.



It is a 15/16 quarter hollow. It is too thin for its width, so I made a brass shim for honing, which brings the angle back to 14 degrees. Still a tad on the thin side, but it'll do. The steel comes from Mike Blue, who also did the heat treatment.

I started with a scrap, and removed everything that was not razor. I named the blade 'Elegance' to have some inspiration for shaping it. Weird as it sounds, that helps.

The scales are french oak, and the spacers are purpleheart. insides are coated with ca several times, and the outsides are coated with antiques wax. Scales are not my strong point, but I try to make something that fits the design. The thinness of the blade required a third pin, and I decided to make a purpleheart rest that is held in place by the pin. This also allowed my to make relatively narrow scales that don't cover the blade fully.

There are a couple of minor issues with this blade that I'll try to prevent with the next one. The most annoying one is that my mark fell off during the etch process. You can still see the shadow, but it is not good. Still, the issues are minor, and this is only a prototype after all. I sold it to one of our members at cost. I thought of keeping it myself, but I have trouble enough letting go of my restored sheffields. This way my blades are used and I get feedback. And I am saving up for a quality grinder so I can use some cash.

Honing this blade was a bit of a challenge. The blade was harder than the sheffields I am used to. It took quite a long time on the stones, and 3 test shaves, but in the end it gave me a very good shave.