Thread: Anybody making razors via stock removal only?

Ok so I started my first razor in earnest via stock removal, 1095 steel.

Is it possible to overheat the steel via grinding before heat treating? I was shaping the tail with an angle grinder and it turned bluish. Now I know after heat treating you can ruin the temper, but I wasn't initially concerned about it while rough shaping. Figured it was worth an ask.

Secondly for my initial trials at this would i be wise to send my razors out for professional heat treating, or is this something I should just try myself? There is a local guy that charges $8 a razor plus shipping to heat treat which sounds really fair, but he sends them out in batches and it might take 6 weeks. I have a small forge and was gonna use knowledge from here, basically color, to try it myself.

Eventually I'd like to forge and heat treat and do it all from scratch, but thinking I might get better results and be less discouraged if I step into it, hence stock removal and pro heat treating.

Attached is a pic, don't hold your breath for me to finish it, it's taken me a long time to get to this point.

I'll be no help, but that is an interesting shape.

I always try to keep the steel from getting too hot in my pre-harden grinding, I don't think it hurts if it does get hot though. I use layout blue to scribe my outlines and if the piece gets too hot the layout blue burns off and it becomes difficult to see my outline so keeping the piece cool has a practical importance.

When hogging off material coarse belts are your friend, I use a 36 grit ceramic for roughing the outline and this keeps the piece much cooler than using something like even a 60 grit belt.

As far as heat treating if you are diligent you should be able to do it yourself even with a simple gas forge. You want to heat the steel up until a magnet no longer sticks, then go a bit hotter. The blade will have a uniformity of glow that you don't see if you simply go to non magnetic. You may even observe decalescence (looks like a shadow radiating over the blade before getting brighter) and you should quench after you observe this. Quenchant can be warm canola/peanut/vegetable oil. Don't use water unless you are using an alloy specifically formulated for water quenching. You want to temper reasonably quickly after hardening, use a toaster oven or even your home oven if you have a reliable oven thermometer or a grill probe to get an accurate temperature. Put something heavy in the oven like a cast iron pan so that the interior temperature doesn't fluctuate too much as the oven cycles (especially important for electric ovens). Temperature and time are obviously dependent on the steel alloy used.

As long as you avoid any obvious mistakes there is no reason that you cannot make a quality blade with only simple tools. Taking your time and being conscientious in your work are the most important things.

With any luck you will hear from Victor, Scott, Bruno, or Mike soon, they know what their doing. Charlie is really good too. I can give my advise, but I’ve only done a few, those guys have done thousands and know what their talking about, fun shape on yours, but not sure how it’s will be stropping and shaving.

Do not worry about the steel getting hot while grinding pre heat treatment. It is fine for the steel to turn blue from the heat of grinding prior to hardening. The steel will be fixed or reset during heat treat.

Sock removal and farming out the heat treat is a great way to start. I started that way then slowly moved to doing my own heat treat.

Doing it yourself is a lot of fun but there are quite a few details to see to, and a lot of ways to end up with less than optimum end result. When you send it out, you eliminate some of those wild cards. $8 for a razor and a one razor minimum sounds pretty good. As far as the wait goes, that should be time to grind out another razor!

One important basic thing is to watch your blade thickness. It is tempting to do all of your grinding before heat treating, while the steel is soft, but you don't want the blade to get too thin before HT. About .040" is pretty tame. Around .030" you can expect a razor or two to warp a bit or even crack, but not very often. That's about 1/32". At .020" you are on pretty shaky ground and I would stay thicker than that. At that thickness you will probably be losing some, depending on the technical details of the heat and quench, and your alloy. Eventually experience will be your guide. So they say. I haven't got there yet. If you send your blades out, stick with the same guy all the time so you develop an idea of what grind works and what doesn't.

Before heat treating, I don't worry about a little blue stain here and there. You CAN ruin a piece by heating too high, too many times, but I think you would probably have to get up to at least dull red heat before you would really have a serious problem.

I have only done my own HT and a couple came out pretty good, a couple not so good but usable. A few practice pieces of which a couple cracked on me. This was in a charcoal fire with a hair dryer as the draft source, magnet for testing (going a little brighter after the magnet no longer sticks) and quenching in warm veg oil. Low tech works, it just isn't as controlled and precise. Now I have a nice regulated Paragon kiln but I haven't used it yet, and I have a bucket of Park 50 quench oil that likewise hasn't been used yet. Some day. I will do another razor with my new toys. I think I am done with the uncertainties of the barbecue razor.

It is more practical to send your blades out for HT but more fun and challenging to do them yourself. I guess its all about whether you are more interested in enjoying the making, or enjoying the having.

When a blade is forged to shape, it is heated to orange hot numerous times. When the blade is normalized during the heat treat process the damage (grain sized, distribution) is repaired. The forged blade will harden just fine. Do not sweat overheating the blade before pre heat treat grinding.

The steel you are making your stock removal blade from is most likely in a good state to harden from. My rule of thumb is if it is too hot to hold while grinding I cool it in water, but that is just for comforts sake, not the state of the steel.

I think the sending it out to be heat treated at that price is a good starting point.

There is so much to learn and keeping that at a minimum to begin with is not a bad idea.

Grind away and learn to grind then learn heat treating.

I like your design but I think that there is to much arch to the tang.

Have fun and go for it but you will see why though.

Been there and done that!

32t I think the tang might have too much arch too, was gonna figure it out as I go, rather leave too much and later take some off than take too much right off the bat. This is kind of a rigarazor knock-off, a different spanish/ French point, a little more swayback, and a depew-ish tail.

I think I'm gonna try some more basic simpler designs to start (non-smiling, square point, smaller straighter tail) and try my own heat treat. These will be to practice rough grind, shape, proportions, layout, tools, workflow, heat treat, final finishing, etc. Hopefully I can crank through some simpler ones to work out the kinks rather than set out to create my masterpiece right off the bat only to get disappointed. I'll see how it goes and take it from there. If I suck at heat treat but everything else is decent maybe I'll send them out.

It is so nice to get advice from the members and custom makers, I'm pretty sure if you like exotic cars you can't just type in a forum and have Enzo Ferrari mentor you personally. Thanks.

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Welcome to SRP. and thanks for the question.

I have made a few razors in the distant past using both stock removal and forging. You will learn a lot from each method so I suggest that you try both.
I started by using old files that cost me very little. From that I learned that once I had annealed and ground off the teeth on the file that the stock was to thin for a 7/8 or 8/8 razor.... and I had some big files to start with! Also, do not make the mistake of trying to use an old rasp. You will go thru so many grinding belts trying to remove the "teeth" that you would be better off buying 4 ft of flat stock.
Most people do not pay enough attention to the tempering stage. The toaster/kitchen oven is not sufficiently stable in temperature by itself. At a minimum I agree that having some other large piece of steel in the oven would help stabilize the temperature flucuations.
Have fun with your adventure.