Thread: 1st attempt making a razor

What did you do your jumps with? I've been thinking about using an older wood chisel for bottom, but would like to do "something" to the top where the fingers rest as well.

For jimps, I started them off with junior hacksaw then used a small v section modelers file. When wide enough I chages to flat file to create the rectangular section. Putting them in individually I found a bit tricky getting spacing even but I wanted them quite chunky for this razor, they're not perfect. Will invest in checkering file for my next razor and go for finer jimps.

That looks really nice, I like how the tail/tang swoops like that. You've put a lot of time into that I can tell; and, if you haven't, don't tell me, just keep things simple for me... haha.

The first thing I noticed about it was all of the notches and jimps in it. Not that they look bad, I like them a lot. They give it a medieval shredder-like look... don't know how else to say that.

Thanks for posting the progress!!

Thanks,
Didn't want it to look to delicate, I'm a sucker for spine work so couldn't resist, I realise it's not to everyones taste. That said I will mock my next design from hardboard and fit into tempory one piece scales to get feel and idea of balance for where to put tang hole. I do like good visibility of heel at times during shave so have a habit of putting 1st two fingers either side of the scales on tang, the curling tail captures finger nicely so it feels safe and worked out pretty good at this point. I love Robert Williams work also, so may be a few influences there?

Built forge (near enough), what a mess SWMBO went balistic. Suffice to say wore a respirator, not to sure what refactory dust does to lungs. Chamber has good coating of ITC100 not shown in picture.
Anyone have any thoughts where to put burner hole? should I be more on muffle or chamber with burner? Advice welcome.

coated pipe can be toxic at high temperatures...
Would recommend doing your HT without the pipe.

Just an observation about your little muffle oven. I sort of agree with Mike_ratliff about the pipe question. Perhaps a simple bit of uncoated steel pipe would be a better choice.

Secondly, although you probably thought of this already, I would use the muffle oven in a vertical position so that you can hang the razor blank to avoid contact with the heated pipe walls.

Thanks for concern fellas, I'm only to aware of dangers of coatings especially zinc. As it happens the pipe is plain old stainless no coating, it's a component from my place of work ( I work in automotive ).
It hadn't occurred to me to fire it verticaly, but what a cool idea, presumably I'd have to use a wire from a bar across the tube, please elaborate. One question I have is how to position the burner to give a more even teperatures, I'm thinking I should play the burner directly on to the side of the tube, maybe it dosn't make much difference.

I would have the flame come in tangentially so that the flame will swirl around the pipe. My concern would be if there is enough space between the pipe and the bricks. I am no forge expert I would try and see if it works.

Charlie

Regarding the wire used for hanging, it should certainly be thick enough in diameter so that there is no danger of it burning through during the heating cycle. Again, one will want to choose for an unplated wire. One might even consider using a length of Nichrome wire instead of regular iron or steel since it is more resistant to heat. Whatever your choice, it is also best to arrange the hanging so that the wire does not directly touch the blade blank except where it passes through the hole. This will (hopefully) prevent any odd heat masking or contact discolorations of the blade metal. More than this I cannot add.