Thread: Western style Japanese blade in grafted purpleheart / maple

This project has been on my bench for years. I work on things as the mood takes me. This razor is a western style Japanese blade which I acquired a long time ago. I reground it on my bench grinder, and then handsanded it up to 2000 grit, after which I polished it with my dremel and chromium oxide. The Tang reads 'Parker Ltd, Made in Japan-Tokyo, Best Silver Steel' and 'swedish steel'. The blade is 11/16

There was one peculiarity on the tang. It doesn't show on the picture, but there is a line across the tang, on both sides, as well as on top and below. No matter how much I handsanded, it would not go away. I finally figured out (also because of the shape of the lines) that this must be a heat treatment line, probably indicating the shape of the clamp that held the blade during quenching. This matched with the observation that the scratch marks on one side of the line were consistently deeper than on the other side. It's kinda like a hamon, but without the added 'cool'.

I got this one without scales so I had to do something new. I had some scraps of wood lying around that were too short for normal scales. I took pieces of maple and purpleheart, and sanded a taper on the end. Then I glued the 2 pieces together with a thin film of water resistant wood glue, and clamped it for a week. Then I sanded them flat again. The joint was good because I couldn't feel the the transition with my finger.

Then I lined up the purpleheart - maple transition on both pieces so that they matched each other, cut off the excess, and turned them into scales. I did a bit of careful sanding to make sure that the transitions on both sides had the same shape. As you can imagine, because of the way the 2 materials overlapped, it was just a matter of sanding the white material away until I hit the purple. I coated the scales with a dozen layers of CA, which I sanded away every 3 layers. That way, there was no ridge or bump between the 2 materials and they felt just like scales made from a single material.

The scales are also pretty thin. this is on purpose to minimize stresses on the joint due to flex. Tbh, I don't expect problems there. The overlap is still a full inch, the joint is strong, and I bent each half of the scales more than a full inch to test it. The joint is strong and the layers of CA on both sides will prevent the ends of the joint from ever getting loose.

Man that is a pretty razor. Love those scales. How does she shave?

Great, one of a kind job! Most pretty and unique! I like it!

Looks like liquid metal
Really like the 2 tone scales. I couldn't imagine any integrity issues at the glue-joint either.. Looks bombproof.

Definitely a nice looking razor. Those scales are a great design.

Beautiful!!!

Bruno,
That's a gorgeous blade . I like how you have created a "blended" look for those scales. That must have been one heck of a challenge. Well done

That looks slick. I commend you for your patience!

It was worth the wait. Suspect if you would have completed a few years ago, you wouldn't of had those scraps to put together those good looking scales.

Nice job

Originally Posted by whavens

Man that is a pretty razor. Love those scales. How does she shave?

Haven't had time to hone it just yet. Hopefully I'll get around to it on wednesday.

Well, the first time the shave sucked. It was my own fault. It took a long time to set the bevel and I thought 'Meh, I'll take it to the 4000/8000 and see how it goes'. To be honest, at that point I figured I had already honed enough for that day

Yesterday, I spent another hour setting the bevel. This is a wedge and the edge was rounded so that took some time. After that I used the 4000 / 8000 Norton, and finished on my Nakayama. The shave was awesome.