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Renren Razor - a study of silk purses and sows ears
A guy I'd previously done some honing for sent me a 'Renren' razor asking for it to be made shave ready. I'd never come across them so did a google search as well as an SRP search and found nothing on honing or shaving with them, which is rare (plenty of places selling them though - http://www.dxmall.com/p/renren-rr130...-silver-247613). So I thought I'd share my experience so there is at least something said about these.
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First impression was this is a straight razor styled pocket knife . The scales are thick but not unattractive, of an average quality of workmanship, pinning was ok and the jimps on the underside of the tang were quite good. The real issues lay in the blade grind. There's a slight hollow grind to the blade but the cutting edge was formed by a 15° bevel much like a kitchen knife. Also there was no edge to the spine with which to set the bevel angle, so basically a knife blade. Also the thinnest section of the blade (right above the bevel) would've been close to 1mm thick (1/25"). But he was pretty keen for me to try honing it despite my warnings, so I figured I'd see just how hard it was to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. At least I'd get something to write a review on - time to hit the stones.
With 3 layers of electrical tape and 40 minutes on a Norton 220k stone I was getting nowhere - my hope that the steel was of a low enough quality that the original bevel could quickly be removed came to nothing. Also the bevel was over 3mm high which is ridiculously big for a straight razor. But rather than give up (or spend the next week honing) I decided to add a couple more layers of tape and continue. The next 30 minutes was basically a series of repeating the last sentence until I had a bevel that would shave arm hair (just), a spine with 10 layers of tape on it, and a well worn patience. But the bevel was set and it was finally time to move on. After working through the 1000, 4000 and 8000 Norton stones plus some stropping with pastes the edge was about as good as I could expect. And surprisingly it did pass the HHT easily. To be honest I didn't have the guts to try shaving with it in case the edge gave up the ghost half way through and I had to repeat the process to be able to send it back to the guy. But I'll ask for feedback on how it shaves and post the response.
So the initial impression was spot on - it just isn't a straight razor. I for one would happily recommend it to be added to the list of no-go razors here on SRP. On the other hand if you have a couple of hours to spare it does make a pretty pocket-knife that will get sharp.
