Thread: Making of: Straight razor

Hello,

i would like to show you my way of straight razor making in a little making of.
It is not a WIP as the razor is long finished.
If you have any questions feel free to ask.

This is part one: the Blade making. Part two: The scale making, is going to follow soon.


I start with cutting the outline of the design out of a steel bar (1.2510). I also forge but this time i started this way.




Next step is grinding the outline of the Design to final shape on the belt grinder, stamping my Logo and drilling the pin hole:





Next is rough grinding. I stop at this point. After hardening i grind it water cooled to final thickness.



The ribbing is also done before hardening:



As is the filework:





Hardening: I use an electric oven with digital temp. control and quench in heated oil in a fryer. The oil has a temp. of 190°C. This is a way to prevent the blade from warping during the hardening process. But it does only work with alloyed steels, not with pure carbon steels, those would not harden. The Blade is then tempered twice for 1 hour at 170-200°C

The hardened blade ground to final shape. The rest is cosmetic:



Cosmetic done ;-) The Blade was handsanded to grit 800 and then polished on the beltgrinder with a special polishing belt.



End of part one.

Cheers,
Ulrik

Nice work.
What type of file is that in the 4th picture.

Thank you.
Thats a ribbing/fluting file. Its a special file type only used to create such parallel cuts. The tooths of the file have a rectangular shape an are aligned in parallel rows.

cheers,
Ulrik

I must say - that is great work Ulrik. Im pretty envious that you have the skills and equipment to do that. You mention that the above blade is an alloy - have you worked with carbon very much and if so, how is the tempering different?

The above blade is made of 1.2510 (1%C 1,1%Mn 0,6%Cr 0,6%W 0,1%V) so its a low alloyed steel. The tempering of such steel ist not different from the one of pure carbon steels. All carbon steels and low alloy steels need to be tempered in the range from 150-200°C
Only high alloyed steels have to be tempered at other temperature ranges. But those steels are no good for razors.
What differs between carbon and low alloyed steels is the hardening temperature. Due to the lack of carbides, carbon steels have a fast grain growth at higher temperatures. So they must be hardened at lower temperatures (770-800°C) to prevent coarse grain.
Low alloyed steels (that are good for razor making) have carbides that need to be solved at higher temperatures. The hardening temp. goes from 810-870°C depending on the exact alloy.

cheers,
Ulrik

Cool to see the progress, thanks for sharing!

1.2510 is known as O1 in other countries.

Part two: Scale making:

First i choose the Material. I decided to use Bocote for this razor. It is important to use scales that are cut from one Block and turn the cut area outside, so both sides of the razor will have the same texture.
I have templates of my scale designs made of cardboard. I transfer the design from the template to one scale, then from the scale to the other scale. I always use 2mm pins. Makes it easy to fix the scales together with toothpicks. Thats very usefull because those can be shaped with the scales and then be removed.





The outline is cut with a bandsaw:



And ground on the belt grinder:



Then i shape the scales on the beltgrinder and finish them with a handsanding to grit 600:



The polish is again done on the Belt grinder:



Thats the grinder and the polishing belt i use:

Next step is the making of the pivot. I turn it from a brassrod and cut a thread in it.



The wedge is also made of brass an has a thread for the srews in it.
All parts before the final assembling (the washers are missing on the pic):




And here is the final razor. You will notice, that the blade has changed. Someone bought it without scales, so i made a new one:







Hope you enjoyed the making of.

cheers,
Ulrik

Originally Posted by Ulrik

Thank you.
Thats a ribbing/fluting file. Its a special file type only used to create such parallel cuts. The tooths of the file have a rectangular shape an are aligned in parallel rows.

cheers,
Ulrik

In English and in knifemaking they call it a "checkering file".