Thread: About stabilizers on custom razors.

I noted, and I admire, lots of nice new razors made by very skilled artisans advertised, promoted and celebrated here. I also noted few of them - if any - bears single or double stabilizers. There is a reason for that?
Modern steel made them useless, is its absence just a design fashion trend, or are stabilized blades too damn hard to make without the coined blanks and double grinders of the past?

I really like the stabilizers.

I think they are not ground thin enough to need stabilizers.

I think Ivan is probably at least partially correct. Bluesman7 aka Victor get them pretty thin, and I have seen some others making thin blades too. I have no idea what the full and true answer would be. I have no idea how thin a blade has to get in order for stabilizers to be needed

I think it's extra work that is not needed with today's steel, as you said. Personally, I don't like them and try to avoid them if I can even on vintage razors!

JMHO
harder to grind could be the reason, if free hand grinding,
if using a jig it may be easier to maintain the even grinds and depths required.

Personally it is an aistaetic thing I like the clean look of the the shoulder-less options especially on the larger blades

Not sure but A full bellied and flexible thin razor would need the stabilising shoulder still regardless of the steel used wouldn't ???

I think the shoulders were a product of drop forging not grinding.

There are vintage bellied full hollow SRs from Solingen. I would think the steel was more than adequate then and a very thin grind did not make a shoulderless blade design impossible either. I'll be using one for tomorrows shave, a 7/8 bellied full hollow shoulderless Blue Wonder. No clue why so many of the new artisan makers are using shoulderless blade designs but I do like a shoulderless blade for shaving with.

Bob

I think the stabilizer is simply an artifact of the grinding sequence. If you watch the Dovo video where the worker is grinding on the double wheel grinder, he is moving the blade back and forth lengthwise. This would cause the wheels to wear with a rounded corner leaving the blade slightly thicker near the shoulder when doing the rough pre HT grind. After the heat treat, when doing the final grind with different wheels, the operator would stop short of the thicker portion of the blade next to the shoulder in order to keep from rounding the finish grind wheels as much as possible and the remaining steel between the shoulder and the termination of the finish grind gets called a stabilizer.

This is all speculation on my part, but it makes perfect sense to me. As far as the stabilizer actually having a function. I have removed the stabilizers from several full hollow blades (I hate them) with no ill effects. The un stabilized heel is no different than the un stabilized toe IME.

Thank you all, gentlemen, for your contribution. A lot of relevant information was raised on this thread!
I also thought that the stabilizers were nothing more than an artifact of grinding, double ones simply by two different grinding depths from the toe on two separate grinding operations, but also noted that the stabilizers were already present as soon the blanks left the forging press.
I also admit they are an one more stone at the road when honing, but I like them anyways.