Thread: Thebigspendurs Weekly Shaving Brainbuster #14

Good morning shaving fiends.

Well, this morning the gang and I gathered all our best livestock and loaded up the trucks and off we went to the State Fair. Oh boy, I can just taste those tasty treats they have there. Auntie brought some of her Prairie Dog Stew and some Apple Pies for the contests and I brought General Beauregard for the prize steer contest and Festus brought that damn goat. Jethro trapped some more mice and trained them to do all kinds of tricks and was going to enter them in some contest and Cletus had set up his forge to give some forging demonstrations and was going to sell some of those homemade Damascus straight razors he got from China.

Well things started to go downhill fast. The State Police arrested Festus having found him behind the stables with that goat doing, well err you know what I mean. Then someone who bought one of Cletus’s razors accused him of being a crook and started beating on him until he grabbed one of his razors and sliced that guy up pretty good. Then they arrested Auntie for violating some environmental laws. How’s she supposed to know Prairie Dogs are protected and what’s that about some weird beetle in the apples that can destroy every apple tree in the country?

Then some little kid taunts the General and he breaks out of his stall and tramples several people and gores a bunch of champion race horses.
Then they confiscate all of Jethro’s mice. How is he supposed to know they were deer mice and they all carry Hantavirus? Why they must have quarantined a couple hundred people because of that.

Then some guy has this trained black bear and I thought that bear looked familiar. He saw jethro and took off after him. I guess it was that same bear who he cheated out of a Badger dinner. I guess I’ll have to find Jethro again. I hope the bear didn’t get him.

Well, I gathered up the General and beat feet out of there and tomorrow jethro has to go to the County Detention Center to bail out his family if he’s still in town. I never did get to sample some of those tasty treats.

So the question for this week’s shaving brainbuster concerns those razors Cletus is selling. He told me they are Double Arrows so first, what kind of steel are they made from? Then what grind are they? Next, how can such a cheap razor seemingly work so good what’s the secret? Lastly how would you hone one of those to get the best edge? Also if you take one of those Double Arrows and put them back in the fire until they are like plastic and rework them will that improve them?

Check back on Wednesday for the inscrutable answers. If you happen to be at the New Mexico State Fair and you see this guy with some trained mice you’d better get out of there because that bear won’t be far behind and either will the Hantavirus.

No takers to this weeks question eh? Well you all must be a bunch of dullards. There won't be any answers from me until we have some responses so there...

I think your so called friends have been cheating you. They told you the razors were made of tungsten but now you found out they were just DA razors that were blued to make them look like tungsten.

I would not try and re-heattreat DA razors as only the Chinese know how to heattreat the steel they use. Ever since the Cultural Revolution the Chinese have used scarp iron to make household utensils. Much of the scrap iron is contaminated with other metals which makes heattreating tricky.

Only Chinese 12K hones should be used, followed by Cr2O3 and a Kanayama strop for best results.

I was just telling Uncle Jethro about the lack of answers to this weeks brainbuster. He says I should go out and trap a bunch of deer mice with hantavirus and send one in the mail to each of you.

Luckily for you I don't have that mean streak he has. What a nasty thought eh?

The double arrow is of course a Chinese made carbon Steel razor in a full hollow configuration. It can be plagued by QC issues and is cheaply made but like many other things though inexpensive can give a very good shave.

I've never honed one personally however I don't see how the usual methods wouldn't work the same as for any other straight. Maybe an owner will chime in here.

As far as that blue razor goes, well it may very well be pure tungsten. Any of you ever seen anything made of pure Tungsten? By the weekend I'll put up a picture of something made of pure Tungsten. Anyone care to guess what it is? here's the chance to redeem yourselves.

Be sure to check back on Sunday for more adventures in the shaving brainbuster. A hint-what happens when you mix a goat and fire?

Picture of a light bulb?

Actually here it is. Solid Tungsten and not some alloy. Both case and bracelet minus the black ceramic on the bracelet and bezel.

Impressive!