Thread: Preparing scales for a new forged razor

Hi there

I've been in the forge again. Swinging the hammer was nice and I felt alive and at peace.

The previous blade I made had a big welding flaw at the tail and I decided to disqualify it. It was the blade from my previous thread: http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...4th-razor.html

But I went for the same design, now using ball bering steel. I forged the contours quite rough and rough shaped it afterwards with my anglegrinder. The blade is about 15 mm high and 4.5 mm thick. I ground it with a 120 mm wheel. In inch: hight 0.59", thickness 0.18", wheel 4,7". I found out that the blade would have been nicer if it had been thicker... but I will do that next time. The thumb groove feels quite nice.

Here is the blade (at the bottom The other is the last one) and the scales drawn on paper. The antler piece is reindeer. I would like to try reindeer horn as scale material. I've never worked in that material before but I have a few antlers. A friend of me, a knifemaker, had been cleaning up his handle materials and had a huge box of wood and horn. He would give it to me or throw it out. He also just gave me a 20 pound vise Nice!

Please tell me what you think or recommend.






Best regards Kristian
I'm going to my grandmothers cottage for the rest of the week from tomorrow so I won't be able to answer before sunday night/monday.

I've used deer antler before and it hand polishes well. If you plan on using a buffer, use a light touch. You will find that it is pretty flexible. I sealed the inside of the scales where you will find the marrow with CA/superglue. They have a real nice "warm" feel to them when finished.

The razor looks like it's taking shape, only concern is that I would have a tougher time stropping it with the pointy thumb notch as I center my thumb on the tang and use my index and thumb to flip the razor while stropping.