Thread: 1st attempt making a razor

Thats your first attempt? Wow, well done! That's much better than my first 6!
Don't sweat the HRC. You will find out if it needs a higher tempering temp when you start honing it.

Joe,

That's a good looking razor.

With the relatively low Rockwell numbers, I'm wondering if you still have decarburization on the blade where you were testing it. Decarb's pretty hard to avoid unless you are using molten salts or coating the blade. If you are doing further grinding, it would be interesting to see what the Rockwell number is after it's all done. (There's a brief explanation of Decarburization in the second paragraph of this post about Forging.)

If decarb turns out to be the culprit, you could try coating your blades with Satanite or Anti-Scale Coating. Here in the US, Knife & Gun Finishing Supplies carries the Satanite, and Brownell's sells the Anti-Scale coating. (I'm sure others do too.) I don't know if you can get equivalents in the UK.

If I read your post correctly, you only tempered your blade once. Normally, you would temper a blade at least twice. You can temper at successively higher temps to reduce hardness, but you can't increase hardness by tempering at lower temps on successive heats. With Rockwells in the low 50's, you wouldn't want to lose any hardness, so I would use the 400 F degree temp again.

Looks really good, way to go! Can't wait to see more

Dave

Hi guys,
My razor is no more, however I have converted it to a frameback.
The steel was supposed to be BS 970 (1970/72) 060A86, Carbon 0.80-0.93%
Manganese 0.60-0.90%
which is equivelent to AISI 1084 though I have reservations about this due to the source. Hard to believe you can screw up ht for this steel but edge was moving (wavy) during final grind (soft).
Must admit I was a little disapointed at first, but having gone down the frameback root it has turned out to be a great experience and loads of fun. Have followed Charlies (spazolla) instructions. Sorry Charlie don't know your surname. My goal is to make a proto that will give a good shave. Will up some photo's soon.
Lessons learnt - No mystery steel, have just ordered some O1

Sorry to hear that.. did you get the 1095 blank I sent a while back?

I've got three razors awaiting heat treat that I have not had time to deal with in a while (finishing grad school, getting ready to move/find jobs). I hope to get some stuff done in the next month to show you guys.

I have the blank ready as my next razor to start, maybe this week thanks.
The hardest lessons for me to learn seem to be the most important.
At least I have integrated this process into some practice and will be a lot calmer the next time. I knew from the start this razor was either going work (shave) or get screwed up, it was never intended to be an ornament.

I glad the instructions for making a frame back helped you out. I have learned a lot since I made that tutorial. I need to rewrite it or take it down. It has been a fun learning process.

Charlie Lewis

Originally Posted by Deckard

Must admit I was a little disapointed at first, but having gone down the frameback root it has turned out to be a great experience and loads of fun. Have followed Charlies (spazolla) instructions. Sorry Charlie don't know your surname. My goal is to make a proto that will give a good shave. Will up some photo's soon.
Lessons learnt - No mystery steel, have just ordered some O1

Charlie,
That tutorial and Boballman's stuff is what got me on this slippery slope to start with.
I held a belief prior to this that I couldn't make a razor without lots of tools and toys.
Now I'll admit the bells and whistles do make things quicker/easier, but I'm literally doing this out of my kitchen and yard and on a budget. Your tutorial make this subject doable to guys like me, the way you put the slot in the frame is ingenious. I do have a cheap drill press so put the cut off wheel in the chuck, I did have to make a small wooden jig and blue tac to hold the frame as it already had the tang thinned.
Please rewrite this great stuff to up date but don't remove as I've got many an idea from them.

Looking forward to seeing the pics of the frame back the razor looked pretty sweet so at least it's not a total lose.