The Freddy Krueger razor

[Legion]

People that know me know that I like a challenge. Sometimes to the point of a ridiculous, foolish and unnecessarily difficult challenge.

The fact is, if something is easy I generally get bored pretty quickly. This was the reason I got into straight razor shaving in the first place. I got bored with getting BBS every time using a safety razor. Wet shaving wasn't interesting to me any more. So I picked up a straight and, guess what!? It was bloody difficult, and therefore fun again!

So, for my next trick...

I found this razor in the wild (antique store) and thought it would be worth owning. It is a W+B wedge with a 5/8 blade and a very thick grind. I date it around 1850ish, though I could be wrong about that. It was more rust than razor, but I gave it a light sand to see what I was working with and really liked the way the pitting looked. Almost like textured Damascus steel

The blade imeadiatly became known as Freddy Krueger because of all the scaring, and I decided to make the scales in red and green, to match Freddy's sweater.

I just finished honing him, and what an ordeal! I don't know what kind of steel was used in the construction of that blade, but I suspect it is extra terrestrial in origin. It took a LONG time, but I think it is there now.

First I bread-knifed the heck out of it to remove all the small chips. When I could run the edge of my thumbnail over the edge and not feel any I set about the long task of setting a bevel. I used three layers of tape to keep the bevel as narrow as possible. It seems pretty sharp now, except about 7mm at the heal which I had some trouble getting to the hone evenly. Oh well. The rest looks good, fairly even, and passes the HHT. I was warned about micro-chipping due to internal corrosion. It looks OK, and I'm hoping I drilled deep enough into good steel so it wont be an issue.

I'm currently trying to grow my beard REALLY fast so I can test shave with it. I want a couple of days growth for this badboy. I think it will do well.


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