custom straight razor

Hello all,

I thought I would post this here just to let you guys see what I’ve been up to, I’ve been restoring vintage straights for about a year now, and loving every one I’ve done. But I like big blades and I’ve always been disappointed I can’t get a good supply, so I decided to start making my own. This is what the first one came out like, it was 12/8” at its widest point but as it was a little less than 4mm across the spine it was surprisingly light and was a really nice shave.


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So now I've started on my next two custom builds I thought I’d show them here and see what you guys think, the next one will be a 10/8” wedge (a homage to my favourite W&B barbers wedge) made out of O1 tool steel.

I had a chance to get it heat treated today and as everybody was busy in my house and had no need for me I cracked on with the final grinding and got a surprising amount done, a bit more grinding and I’ll start polishing him up ready for a nice set of honey coloured horn scales next week.

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I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions on these.

Drew

cool! are those reflections on the blade? that would be a awesome blade to use in a public restroom. definitely would give the impression of manliness. kind of like shaving with a battle ax.

They look to me like you have the touch. Very well done. : )

Hi Tintin, on the first blade yes it was mirror polished and it was a bit like shaving with a hatchet! but it was surprisingly easy to use and a really good shave. But it would get lots of man points if someone saw you shaving with that beast!!

Just a quick update before I turn it for the night, the blades about there all polished and honed. I don't usually hone my razors until after I've scaled them but the horn I ordered hasn't arrived yet (hopefully here tomorrow).
I'll get some photos up tomorrow once I'm all done.

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Looks great. Ill be interested in seeing the final

looking great can't wait to see the finnished products either

My opinion is that 4mm wide is waaaay too thin for something that is 12/8 in width. That should be at least 8 mm wide. The honing angle is way too shallow, which in return means that the edge retention will suffer, and during honing you're going to get very wide bevels and honewear very soon, which is both ugly and an impediment to honing.

First, let me say I'm not trying to be a smarta$$ here, just providing some info to a guy who's well on his way to making some gorgeous razors.

Assuming the honing surface width through the spine is four mM (which is halved to approximate the length of the "opposite" side of our right triangle), with a 1.5 inch blade (converts to ~38mM) a "back of an envelope" calculation seems to indicate about a three degree bevel angle...which will result in the effects described by Bruno. With 14-17 degrees being desirous (depending on who you ask) I think you're going to have to thicken the spines in the future.

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Beautiful blades however. You have the knack for it!

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from the bevel calculator liberated from here & Coticul.com (I think it was) for a 38mm blade with say 36mm of blade face allowing 2mm for spine radius etc to acheive the 17° bevel theory it would need to be 12mm nearly to get 17° with no tape
not sure how you go honing them unless you do it like a knife held up not flat on the hone like a razor?? other wise it would have a big bevel area to get the angles?

I have a 8/8", about 1/2-3/4 hollow with about a 20mm blade area x 6mm spine & it has about a 2mm bevel face nearly with 2 layers of tape used and you are going 4mm x 36mm this would make the bevel face much larger I think?

I do agree with Mike but either way they look awesome,

Thanks for the information guys, every day's a school day!
this one is 5mm across the spine so I think I'm a lot closer to the correct angles (ish).

So here it is the finished beast, I used natural horn for the scales with a lead wedge, large brass collars and pins.

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looks pretty narly Drew:tu
what was your hone process / system used?

Cheer Substance,

I start with a 1000 grit Naniwa stone then an 3000 grit then a 8000 grit then the final 12000 natural slate.

Then final honing on a balsa paddle strop impregnated with green chromium oxide then on a heavy wool felt paddle strop with red oxide and finally well stropped on leather then on my jeans (don't tell the wife) that seems to do the trick nicely.

I just gave it a test drive with four days of growth (I've been saving it up) and one stroke down and one up and it went through it like a champ! very, very happy with it.

How many layers of tape for the honing ?

Very nice razor but looks wicked.

I have on order a custom made straight razor with a Japanese handle, but with a western style blade.
The drawing is of how it'll look.

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