Thread: Stainless steel razors on Shapton Pros.

Yeah, good razors from them also. Really any American razors from the very late 1800s to the early (pre WWII but mainly pre WWI) 1900s is usually pretty good BUT especially from that Little Valley-Rochester-Olean-Geneva trapazoid.

You know some pretty good stuff came out of Worcester Mass also. Also Shumate in St Louis is a contender. I love that Tungsten and Tungsteel series.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Gotta agree with my friend Randy

We all had to go through TI's idea to take their CarbonSong up to 66rhc,,, that didn't last long before they backed it down

+1... Iwasaki tamahagane razors are the only high HRC razors that are exceptional.

Originally Posted by outback

If u seen how they produce a factory edge at Dovo, you'd understand why they come with frowns most of the time.

Oh dear, I did saw that video on this forum and that's exactly why I decided to keep away from Dovo. I wish I saw it earlier, then I would have probably gone for Boker and saved tones of troubles.

Originally Posted by randydance062449

If that razor has an HRC of approx 70 ( which is highly doubtful) then it will most certainly be brittle and very prone to microchips.
There is a reason that most razors are in the HRC range of 58-60. That range produces stable edges on the steel.

Just my 2¢

Your assertion definitely stands. I wasn't thinking much before buying it, just wanted a super hard razor, that's all about it. I've no means to evaluate its exact HRC but for sure it's much harder than my Dovos and Boker, which are as you mentioned most likely 58~61 HRC, and thus should be much brittle too. I did not really use it much as I don't like the ground at all, but I do suspect it chips easily.

Put all that aside, it's painful to hone, especially when the geometry wasn't right at the beginning. My S30K simply cannot cut it, or at least cannot cut it at reasonable speed and that's why I could hardly see any swarfs. I had actually to use diamond strop to bring up the edge to my standard. I don't see that's an advantage neither, as I stopped using diamond strops for quite a while before this.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Gotta agree with my friend Randy

We all had to go through TI's idea to take their CarbonSong up to 66rhc,,, that didn't last long before they backed it down

I wish I knew this before I pulled the trigger.

Originally Posted by outback

I feel the Clauss razors out of Ohio, the same

Wow, I just realized that I do have a vintage Clauss razor, which I don't use much but rather oil & put it in a plastic box. I should probably pick it up and try shaving with it.

Originally Posted by mrjin

My skin is super sensitive, 3 passes would be too many. So I would always try to reduce the passes to the least and as light as possible, straight edge would be better this case. I have tried the Titan's smile edge but I did not like most of its aspects. It's probably a combination of multiple factors, but you know, I have only tried that many times. I might eventually prefer a smile edge, but so far, it's not quite there yet.

I do understand it's lots of efforts to get something like what in your pic #1 to shave ready. But with Titan, it wasn't the case. After I get it shave ready, the spine is no better than the KN razor below. Unlike your example, Titan's spine is straight, the smile was just created using something like an EdgePro. The geometry was off quite a bit. I'm sorry that I could not see any craftsmanship in it at all.

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I had to fix the spine, why not straighten the edge at the same time? The only thing was that I under estimated the effort needed. The steel was much harder than any other razors I have, it's probably really HRC 70, if not really that high, it will be very close to it. So it super hard to hone, and I had to press it super hard on the diamond plate to fix the spine or it would just keep skidding.

Anyway, I'm happier with it than before.

I was reading back through some of the posts in this thread and this one I guess I didn't notice before. Anyway, it prompted more thoughts.

1) a scything stroke is not harder on the skin. In fact it is a method meant to keep from using more strokes by maximizing the blades contact with the hair at each pass. It is not horizontal, not vertical in relation to the hair it is more diagonal so the blade cuts rather than hacks the hair. It took me a while to get that stroke and it seems wrong to do since you spend most of your learning in NOT slicing yourself. But that is what you are doing, slicing thought the hair, just in a.way that doesn't slice the skin. If you have sensitive skin and can't use too many strokes a scything stroke would help you. It is ,if not the main purpose, the main advantage of a.smiling blade.

2)In your particular case that Titan razor may just not be crafted well but a blade with a complex geometry may not need to be "fixed" necessarily. Typically a smiling blade would have a corresponding smile to the spine but it doesn't have to. You can craft a blade that looks like this


That blade would need a spine shaped like this...


...to get it to hone maintaining a consistent bevel angle. Otherwise it would be too obtuse (IF the edge would even touch the hone) at the ends and not shave well while being too acute in the center and tend to chip. That is even assuming that you knew HOW to hone it in the first place. Most of us would not want a blade like the drawing because it is not pleasing to the eye. Also, it is too complex for the layman to hone so anyone who makes blades would tend to not send that out into the public. You would hone that with a rocking stroke where the edge at the heel contacts the stone at the first part of the stroke but the edge at the toe does not. At the other end of the stroke that would be reversed. This is more easily done with a very narrow stone but it is not necessary. You learn to hone on the first inch or two of the hone to achieve this.

Forgive me if I over explain. I'm not sure where you are in your honing experience. Honing is one of those puzzles that seems easy to solve at the surface as is understanding blade geometry. Once you get some time into it you discover that the puzzle is more complex than it seems. Actually the puzzle itself is not but understanding it fully is. I don't mean to condescend but it is easy to look at the puzzle on the surface and miss the complexity.

Links did not work Paul!

Dang it. I've seen other posts where that happened also recently

There. Hopefully that fixed it.
Thanks