Thread: Some works in progress

Hi all I thought I would post some pics of some works in progress,they might be helpful for anyone considering making their own straight razors.
First up is a pic of the templates cut out off Sheffield 01 tool steel.
More progress to follow cheers ed.

How thick is the steel?
The width of a razor can be maximum 4 times the thickness of the spine.
That means that if your razors have a width of 30+ mm, they need to be at least 8 mm thick at the spine.

Hi Bruno sorry I should of mentioned the thickness it is 1/4" thick I am aiming for a 8/8" blade width.
Loving your progress post I would love to have a go at forging but I am still struggling at stock removal cheers ed.

Ah ok no worries then. I could not tell from the picture.
My first razors were stock removal too. Your razor will be just as good as if it had been forged.
The main reasons for forging are:

1) it is fun
2) it goes quicker than removing all that steel
3) you are not bound by the size of the stock.
4) when working with expensive steel, you need less.

Froma quality pov, stock removal is equal to forging.

Cheers Bruno, forging definitely looks like fun and something that I feel I am going to progress to, I am still trying to get over the cost of all the equipment needed so far I have had to build a 2x72" grinder with all the attachments and contact wheels$$$,electric kiln$$$ etc definitely not a cheap hobby but I really enjoy it and I have only made six razors so far!

Here are the templates after initial profiling and I have rough ground them on my 2x72" belt grinder using an 8" contact wheel,the blades are left with some meat on so they don't warp when heat treated,The cutting edge is about 1/16" thick at this point.The top razor has now become my spinework practice razor after becoming too hot and warping when I was experimenting with a grinding jig,I managed to grind the blade too thin and it warped almost instantly, The razors are finished to about 120 grit ready for heat treatment.
More progress to follow soon ed.

Is that scale in cm?

Hi Bruno yes it is in cm,I know the bottom razor is a monster!! What size cutting edge do you make your razors? The 1st and second one in the pic are about 3" cutting edge and the bottom one is about 2.75",I've measured a lot of vintage razors and they seem to vary so much what's your preference? Ed.

Usually about 5,5 - 6,5 cm
But the reason I ask is that the top one seems to be too wide for its 1/4 thickness

Yeah I am still getting a feel for how much to leave on a blade,I figured it was best to leave them oversized and adjust later rather than find I didn't have enough to work with,the more razors I do the more I realise that I can pretty much get them to the exact size before heat treatment because there is only a thin coating of scale to grind off after.
Do you treat your blades before ht so you don't get any scale or do you leave as is?