Thread: Honing a ????????able Damascus Razor

Here is the outcome...

All honing was done using 1 layer of 3M #700 electrical tape. I spent 1 hour trying on the razor..
1k Norton literally was tearing the metal away, looked like a hacksaw blade under magnification, the feel was wrong, the sound was wrong, so I stopped.
Moved it to the 4k and worked a bit with some slurry to even up the edge some using a more gentle approach, again the metal was very soft and worked fast, but I was getting a polish to the edge..
Moved to the 8k and started with a light slurry and diluted out to clear water, still quite a bit of metal swarf on the hone..
I could still pop arm hair but no where near normal, move to the CrOx strop and, bam,,, edge polished right up, looked like a normal razor now and the arm hair popped better, so I stropped it and lathered up...
Shave:
Technically it shaved, there was hair removed, I did one WTG pass and gave up, looking at the edge reveled the problem, there was significant edge damage from just 1/2 a shave... The metal is just not where it needs to be...
If you were to keep a CrOx charge strop handy and do about 10 laps after maybe 2 shaving strokes you could probably shave with the razor...

All kidding aside this is what drives people away from our hobby if this were my first razor my thought would be "Those guys are full of Crap, this sux"
Honestly my face is a bit raw...

You should be able to see the polish of the edge in these pics compared to the first ones from the honing..

Question about the metal...

Is there a way that this "Damascus" pattern can be etched onto plain metal?????? because that is what is looks like to me...

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Question about the metal...

Is there a way that this "Damascus" pattern can be etched onto plain metal?????? because that is what is looks like to me...

Doesn't Dovo do exactly this on one of its models?

Has been done for a very long time,this is faux damascus.

OK then !!! this is from my normal simple TP and WD-40 wipe down before return shipping.. I have never seen this before on any other razor... I stopped at this too, and just re-packed it for the return trip...

Was the metal breaking down just from the WD40??

I didn't have high hopes for this razor. Especially after seeing that square point at the heel.

Originally Posted by Mastershake

Was the metal breaking down just from the WD40??

That was likely the residue left over from the ferric chloride etch of the damascus. Some smiths leave some on the blade to increase the contrast after polishing, and usually seal the surface of the blade with beeswax. The WD-40 acted like a solvent and dissolved the wax so the residue came off on the TP.

Originally Posted by Mastershake

Was the metal breaking down just from the WD40??

They etch it with ferric Chloride,same chemical used on real damascus,it wipes off to a point.
Whoops,my bad,got in under the wire,sorry

Originally Posted by gssixgun

OK then !!! this is from my normal simple TP and WD-40 wipe down before return shipping.. I have never seen this before on any other razor... I stopped at this too, and just re-packed it for the return trip...

An etched blade will have black foo that will wipe off. Eventually the dark black
will be almost gone and the pattern will be less stark but will stay.

Muriatic Acid or Feric chloride??????

It is possible to print a pattern on steel with a resist then etch. If the pattern looks
like pattern welded steel, wood, a man hunting, your name or what ever the final etch
will look like the pattern.

(edit) The black is etched steel and either folded steel laminate or printed resist etch
the black would be the same. I think Mike Blue is correct this looks like
pattern welded steel but badly heat treated, just terrible steel or the carbon was
burned off as the steel was folded, welded and hammered. If the steel is terrible
or if the carbon has been burned off it is what it is. If it is just bad heat treating
there is an ultra long shot that it could be heated quenched and tempered again.
Perhaps painted with a clay slip or heated in an inert gas like argon to keep O2
and CO from reacting with the carbon and steel.
While we are timing melting snowballs one might try case hardening but that
would mandate asymmetric sharpening to keep the thin hardened surface in play
for more than one day.