Thread: My first two razors, ready for heat treat

Hi everyone, just wanted to say how excellent this forum was, and to share with you my first razor project.

I learned a lot from reading through the archives here about how to make a razor. I'm not claiming that I do know how of course, but reading stuff here answered questions I had and surely saved me a ton of time with trial and error. So now I've got two roughly razor shaped hunks of metal, ready for heat treat.

Based on various threads here I opted to start out with O1 steel since its cheap, relatively easy to work, and by all accounts performs well as a razor. I got a bar of 1x0.250" from Jantz for like $15, which is enough for 3 razors!

I think the idea expressed here of "remove everything that isn't a razor" is a good guiding principle. I have a decent machine shop at work which I can use after hours, so I've been using the kinds of tools you find in a machine shop. I made myself a jig to hold my blanks at an angle to allow easy milling to get the rough taper angle on the blade part, and bought a carbide insert mill off ebay. Between the mill, metal bandsaw, sanders, and a buffer, I've managed to get the shape about right. I ground the hollows with a 6" rubber sanding wheel I bought from Caswell.

On one blank the edge got a bit thin perhaps for O1 pre-heattreat; about 1.5mm. The other one I made a little thicker, so the edge is 2mm. The handles are milled down to about 4.3mm. Hopefully they won't warp. The first one took a while since I had to figure out what I was doing, but the second one took only 2 hours to go from blank to the state in the picture.

One downside to O1 is heat treating. On the plus side its simple enough to do yourself, though I don't feel up to that at the moment. But it does seem less predictable than some of the air hardening steels, which I could just send out to one of the knife supply companies to do. After reading here, I'm going to PM someone off this board to see if they will do it for me.

Anyway, I'll let you know how it turns out!

What an awesome project! O-1 steel is definitely a decent steel to work with but I've personally preferred W-2 or something like CPM M4 when it comes down to steel but thats just my preference

Good luck and have fun! I was thinking about making a few myself too.

Looks great. I've wanted to try that style of razor. Let me know if you need a test shaver.

Have you ever used this stle of razor Hollygates? Just curious.


Mick

Looking good, I am waiting for the finished pics now.

Charlie

Originally Posted by MickR

Have you ever used this stle of razor Hollygates? Just curious.


Mick

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback.

Mick -
The only razor of any type I've used (other than a short period with disposables when I was a teen) is a kamisori I've got, which I have only been using for a few months. I am transitioning from lifelong electric use, and it is taking a while. I am over the difficult start up period, but the main problem is that if I want to not do a lot of damage and I want an ok shave, it takes me 40 minutes! I try to use the straight every other night; I just can't take that much time either in the morning, or every night. The 8 hour old straight shave is STILL better than the electric would be the next morning. Plus every other day lets my face recover. I figure once I can get the time down I can go full straight.

Its been a lot of fun so far. I made myself a strop, soap, and a brush. I'm looking forward to using a razor I made myself too. The kamisori is nice, but there is nothing as satisfying as using something you made yourself, you know?

-Holly

Keep at it. I miss the half hour plus shaves to be honest. It was "my time". But, with experience you can knock out a multi-pass shave in minutes. Doesn't make it better though

Awesome job on the razors. Hope they shave as good as they look!

I agree with robellison01, the 30m shaves were definitely a zen moment to think about the day before it starts haha its even better to start off the day shaved before my first cup of coffee

@HollyGates - Its definitely more rewarding to know that you've made something and it actually works :P I haven't attempted in making a strop, a brush or even soaps. Hmm.. I think I have a new weekend hobby..

Originally Posted by HollyGates

...I made myself a strop, soap, and a brush. I'm looking forward to using a razor I made myself too. The kamisori is nice, but there is nothing as satisfying as using something you made yourself, you know?

-Holly

Yes as a matter of fact, I do know that satisfaction

Originally Posted by dawills87

...I haven't attempted in making a strop, a brush or even soaps. Hmm.. I think I have a new weekend hobby..

Strops are easy, and everyone should have a go at making one of those I reckon. I've made my own brush as well, but a Lathe is handy to have there. I have an old second hand one that was given to me and the first thing I made was a new brush.


Mick

@MickR - Yeah, strop was easy and is working fine. Brush was straightforward (assuming lathe access) and works great.

@dawills87 - Soap was easy, but my first batch of soap was kind of harsh. I'm hoping it will mellow with age, but in the meantime I cooked up another batch just the other day to see if I could improve it. I want to be on to using my own soap full time by the time the partial tube of Toms of Maine cream I got as a PIF from someone on B&B runs out.

The last piece of the set, the razor, is definitely the hardest one to make. But so far so good. I'm 100% sure most people could make a strop and soap.

I've also got to work out some kind of slick case for these fixed blade razors though.