Thread: Grinding Wheel diameters and resulting grinds?

I don't really know if this question is ok here, or if it belongs in the "Workshop" forum, but here goes...

I make a few razors...

But I'm trying hard to determine which wheel diameter produces a 1/4 hollow, 1/2 hollow etc. In fact those terms don't mean much to me, as a blade that's ground correctly, whether it be wedge or the other end of the spectrum should shave just as well, if honed and stropped properly (only my opinion).

My very first razor was a brand new Red Imp Wedge. It's disappeared over the years and I wish I had it back. I do recall that I enjoyed the solid feeling of the thicker backing to the edge, though.

I've also enjoyed good shaves from razors with full hollow grinds, so again, if its properly sharpened, I'm easy to satisfy. I've been shaving with a straight razor since 1968.

But I would like to know where to start if I set out to produce a particular grind. Currently, my smallest wheel is 5" in diameter. I've been using an 8" wheel on the razors I've made so far with good result. The width of my razors have been 6/8 -7/8, assuming that is an actual measurement of the width and not a 'razor term' with some other proportion.

Can someone point me in the right direction? Wheels for belt grinders aren't cheap, and I'd like to have some idea of the result before I order a smaller one.

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Knipper

From what I have read on the old Sheffield archives, some grinds are not the product of just one wheel - some blades went through a set of opposed wetstones of several different diameters. Sometimes a much smaller wheel was used and "walked" down the width of the blade.

I made a set of circles up out of cardboard once to get an idea of the diameter of the stones used - some of the profiles of the blades I held the circles against had a 3 or 4 inch diameter...

Regards,
Neil

Moved to the Forge, this is the most appropriate forum since most of the guys that actually make razors hang in here...

Hey Terry, try here: http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...facturing.html

And here: http://www.boker.de/videos/damastrasiermesser.wmv

Good videos and the stone wheels look to be about 4 inches.

I'm interested in this myself, looking at making a grinder & doing some grinding & shaping on some stock material a SRP member is cutting out for me on a waterjet...

I was talking with Butch Harner and Lynn in chat the other day about this and this is what I recall.


IIRC, Butch said for a 7/8 razor he grinds with the following wheels:

10" - wedge
8" -1/4
6" -1/2
3"-2" - hollow

I hope I remembered that correctly, if not I'm sure they'll correct my numbers soon enough

One thing to keep in mind is that it's largely dependent on the width of blade you are doing, a smaller blade width makes each wheel seem flatter (if that makes sense... 8" becomes more wedgelike as the blade width gets smaller)


I'm going to be grinding my blanks (7/8) with 6" and 3" wheels FWIW

Cheers
Dave

Hey, Terry, good to see you on here. Hopefully we can get another MN get together soon. You're taking a break from custom knives?

I used to have a ton of great bookmarked websites and then I had to reinstall my computer's operating system and lost a bunch of that stuff.

There is a foreign straight razor site in english that has great information not only on the various grinds, but also what wheels were used with each stage of the hollow grinding process. For the life of me I can't remember the name.

Can anyone help us out? It's that site with different sections/chapters. It shows the Henckels grind chart, etc.

The wheels to use for specific blade width/grind are detailed in the Arthur Boone Razor Central document. We used to have it in the Help Files.

I found it at the following website...
http://www.en.nassrasur.com/razorcentral/archraz4.html
Hope this helps,

I agree with what Neil Miller said in this reply.

Having visited the Thiers-Issard factory and having seen the grinding machines and their grinding wheel stocks, I can tell you that it is not uncommon for various wheel diameters to be used on the same razor blank. I am, however, not able to give you specifics.

I will point out that trying to duplicate the grinding work of a double wheel razor grinding machine using a machine with only a single wheel is difficult to say the least.

I saw the youtube video of TI with that opposed wheel grinder... How hard do you suppose it would be to put something like that together?