Thread: My first two razors, ready for heat treat

You want something like this for those centre marking lines #DBLG Layout Scribe Or this one would be a bit better. Knifemaker's Scribe


Mick

Nice work.

Edge up or down when grinding? I always have edge up.

Electrical tape. I sharpened mine with 1 layer. However I sent both of my 1st 2 straights of to a friend on the forum and he found the shave was better with 3 layers.

It was very cool to get some feedback from a very finicky user as to the pros and cons of my blades. I intend to modify the points and heels slightly to fit what we had talked about.

I am getting ready to build a couple of more one of which will be much to his design.

Lots of work and truly a sense of pride in shaving with a blade that was crafted with your own hands.

I am not ready to make the jump to forging yet and am blown away by the guys who make their own steel. The whole process shapes the man as well as the blade.

Jeff

Not sharp yet? Go to the hone section and ask. Bevel not set? Rolling edge when stropping? Not enough time at higher grits? To much pressure?

The determination was made that over stropping helped my blades.

Mike Blues O1 heat treated blades are very tough!

OR have you got it now?

Good Luck

Well, after the helpful advice here and some private consultation with Mike Blue, it seemed much more likely that I just was not honing well, rather than having messed up the heat treat. Several people mentioned that the wide bevel would make honing more difficult (Its kind of embarrassing to show a wide and uneven bevel!). I figured that even with a wide bevel I would be way ahead of a wedge, which people do manage to hone albeit with some trouble. Still, I got to thinking I should spend some more time on the grinder before honing.

Focussing for now on razor #1, I kept a plastic DMT plate next to the grinder and would give the razor a few swipes after each cooldown in the water bath to show me what the bevels looked like. I spent a little more time at 40 grit, then a while at 120, 240, 320, then rebuffed and remarked. Through the extra grinding and honing I've managed to give it a bit of a smile, but I'm ok with that. Honed it again with one layer of tape and it turned out ok, not fantastic. I'll post a pic of the improved bevel tomorrow. I ended up doing the bevel setting on the plastic DMT rather than my Norton 220/1000 which just didn't seem to be doing the edge any good. Do other people have that hone and like it? After 600 and 1200 on the DMT, I did Norton 4k/8k, then CrOx strop.

I shaved last night with it, and again experienced a feeling like it was awesome to be using my own razor, but that it would take some getting used to. Its so much wider and heavier than my kamisori, which makes it feel a bit unwieldy, and despite having tried to ease the corners a bit I gave myself some minor nicks with the spikes. On the plus side I think it cut better WTG than the kamisori, and it is certainly easier to be able to use both sides of the blade.

Originally Posted by TURNMASTER

Not sharp yet? Go to the hone section and ask. Bevel not set? Rolling edge when stropping? Not enough time at higher grits? To much pressure?

The determination was made that over stropping helped my blades.

Mike Blues O1 heat treated blades are very tough!

OR have you got it now?

Good Luck

I did all my grinding edge up. Thanks for the thoughts.
-Holly

Originally Posted by TURNMASTER

Nice work.

Edge up or down when grinding? I always have edge up.

Electrical tape. I sharpened mine with 1 layer. However I sent both of my 1st 2 straights of to a friend on the forum and he found the shave was better with 3 layers.

It was very cool to get some feedback from a very finicky user as to the pros and cons of my blades. I intend to modify the points and heels slightly to fit what we had talked about.

I am getting ready to build a couple of more one of which will be much to his design.

Lots of work and truly a sense of pride in shaving with a blade that was crafted with your own hands.

I am not ready to make the jump to forging yet and am blown away by the guys who make their own steel. The whole process shapes the man as well as the blade.

Jeff

Originally Posted by HollyGates

Well, after the helpful advice here and some private consultation with Mike Blue, it seemed much more likely that I just was not honing well, rather than having messed up the heat treat. Several people mentioned that the wide bevel would make honing more difficult (Its kind of embarrassing to show a wide and uneven bevel!). I figured that even with a wide bevel I would be way ahead of a wedge, which people do manage to hone albeit with some trouble..

That is a common misconception. A properly ground wedge will still have only a very thin bevel. I have a 9/8 Joseph rodgers wedge of which the bevels are almost invisible. Honing that was very easy.

Bevels depend on how thin you grind the steel on the very edge, the grind isn't that important. You can make a full hollow have a very large bevel, and a wedge have a very small one, no problem.

Thanks for all the help everyone. These two razors are "done". I've been thinking about sending one to a pro to get them to see if they can get it into excellent shape. Then I could see where my efforts have fallen short and have something to compare my other one to when trying to improve my honing.

I've still got steel for one more like this from the original $15 bar I bought from Jantz. Then I'm thinking I might actually prefer something a little smaller and lighter, like a 6/8...

I posted in the Gallery section with these two, which you can find here:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/custo...de-razors.html

very interesting read and very cool razors