Thread: Natural hone for setting the bevel?

Originally Posted by eKretz

There seem to be some posters in the discussion who are beyond their depth (and being sarcastic/rude about what they don't understand no less). There are no "carbide tipped" blades being discussed here. Carbides form naturally in certain steel alloys when they are hardened. Any alloy of steel that contains a certain percentage of tungsten or vanadium or other carbide forming alloys will naturally form these carbides, and they are a pain to deal with. Most razors are made from plain unalloyed steel, so most razor users don't have to worry about these issues.

The discussion did segue into knife steel and hardness - and this is where that comes more into play. There are also some low quality razors made whose makers didn't have very tight control over their alloys - namely a lot of blades from Pakistan I have seen this issue with - and these can have carbide issues and can be a pain to hone.

Here is a photo of a razor made from a high tungsten alloy - you can clearly see the very hard carbide particles sticking out of the steel that weren't cut by the synthetic hone.

Is this a picture of a Pakistan razor ?