Thread: rigarazor

I have one of each steel. Both are very similar. Tungsten steel is smoother than bohler r100 steel, but the difference is not very huge.

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Originally Posted by Kees

He sells carbon steel and tungsten steel razors, the latter at a huge premium. Is tungsten steel worth the money?

In my opinion, there is a noticeable difference.

The feeling I get from most of the razors that use "tool" steel, the weight and heft tends to be missing, apologies for repeating myself, but I hate the feeling of shaving with something that feels like it could have been a wrench. Feels different in the hand, and on the face, not nearly as smooth.

The Tungsten is the closest feeling to my Sheffield blades so far. The Herr razor, while not Tungsten, has a good weight to it, and I feels fairly indistinguishable from the Riga.

I find stainless steel razors, like the Friodur, or some of the other custom makers using this "lighter" steel, personally, if I don't like the way it feels in my hand, I generally don't like the shave as much either, and this is true for me.

Now, it's not like I'm saying I'd throw the others on the garbage heap....LOL...not by a longshot, they're fine razors, just in the world of personal preference, I prefer a steel that has good weight to it, and comes as close as possible to how the originals were made - the Tungsten accomplishes that extremely well, and obviously, one of the reasons he makes razors using it.

YMMV....

For me, stainless steel razors just don't take as fine an edge as carbon steel ones do. The two stainless steel razors that I have won't be joined by any others, that's for certain. Their weight is just fine, but I really do not care for the lack of smoothness in their edges. YMMV as they say.

Originally Posted by Kees

He sells carbon steel and tungsten steel razors, the latter at a huge premium. Is tungsten steel worth the money?

I have an opinion that "tungsten" can produce carbides that are great for slicers
but an open blade razor should not slice. If the steel is correctly heated, cooled and
shaped the carbides do not form in bad ways and there is a very abrasive resistant
and tough tool steel that will hold a nice push cut edge for shaving.

I see Tungsten steels with tungsten content from 0.5% to 17% so it is unclear
what steel is involved. As tool steel goes tungsten rich tool steels are difficult
to machine, enough so that the premium cost makes sense.

The difficulty of machining would reflect itself as difficulty honing.
With modern high end synthetic hones all should be all OK but old hones and
even some new hones are a question. Natural hones including j-nats and
coticules need to be evaluated.

My guess is the tungsten steel razors are top notch. No one would work steel
that tough and hard and not have pride in the result.
The key question is to ask what to hone the tungsten steel razor with for the best edge.

Originally Posted by niftyshaving

I have an opinion that "tungsten" can produce carbides that are great for slicers
but an open blade razor should not slice. If the steel is correctly heated, cooled and
shaped the carbides do not form in bad ways and there is a very abrasive resistant
and tough tool steel that will hold a nice push cut edge for shaving.

I see Tungsten steels with tungsten content from 0.5% to 17% so it is unclear
what steel is involved. As tool steel goes tungsten rich tool steels are difficult
to machine, enough so that the premium cost makes sense.

The difficulty of machining would reflect itself as difficulty honing.
With modern high end synthetic hones all should be all OK but old hones and
even some new hones are a question. Natural hones including j-nats and
coticules need to be evaluated.

My guess is the tungsten steel razors are top notch. No one would work steel
that tough and hard and not have pride in the result.
The key question is to ask what to hone the tungsten steel razor with for the best edge.

Here's the specs on the Tungsten steel Sergej sent me, hope this is what you're looking for:

The razor is made from Tungsten Carbon steel, hardness of the blade is 63HRC. Have no idea what that means, but it looks "official"....

When I sent him my impressions about it being similar to Sheffield steel, he agreed, he said, more like the old Sheffield steel, not as nice as the Silver Steel.

Originally Posted by Phrank

The razor is made from Tungsten Carbon steel, hardness of the blade is 63HRC. Have no idea what that means, but it looks "official"....

When I sent him my impressions about it being similar to Sheffield steel, he agreed, he said, more like the old Sheffield steel, not as nice as the Silver Steel.

63HRC is hard HARD steel, right up at the top of the hardness range for knives and chisels.
Will take a good stone to tackle that edge. But the edge should last significantly longer than most razors that live in the 55-59 HRC range, as far as I know..
Very tempted to pull the trigger on one of his tungsten Irish points in the 8/8 variety now...

Thanks for the info Mike.
And I've been eyeing his razors for a while. They are really nice looking

Originally Posted by Phrank

Here's the specs on the Tungsten steel Sergej sent me, hope this is what you're looking for:

The razor is made from Tungsten Carbon steel, hardness of the blade is 63HRC. Have no idea what that means, but it looks "official"....

When I sent him my impressions about it being similar to Sheffield steel, he agreed, he said, more like the old Sheffield steel, not as nice as the Silver Steel.

As MikeB52 said 63HRC is very hard almost crazy hard.

A white paper #2 steel is one of deluxe choices for a sharp razor edge and is hardened to about 60-61.
Harder than 60-61 carbon steel is often too fragile. Tungsten carbides are hard in the range of 70RHC
and because they are so hard can form slicing teeth because of the differential hardness of the steel and
carbides.

The more I look this stuff up the more I want one even if I have to resort to diamond dust or CBN to sharpen it.

Have fun both steels should make a good razor.

About HRC.
HRC is a way to measure hardness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_scale

There are other steel qualities that come to play but for pure steel HRC is the baseline.

Originally Posted by M14Shooter

I asked Sergej by email when I bought my razor from him.
He finished my edge on Naniwa Gouken Kagayaki #12 K with one layer of "Scapa" tape on the spine .
Thickness of the tape is 0,13 mm.

Thanks for that.
Incidentally, he finally replied to my email, and listed some US distributors for the tape. I know when I looked, I was looking at $15+ for a roll of tape, posted from overseas.

In case it is helpful to anyone else, this is what Sergej just sent me for US distributors:

Scapa North America, Windsor: 111 Great Pond Dr, Windsor CT, 06095. Phone: 860.688.8000
Scapa North America, Syracuse: 1111 Vine St, Liverpool NY, 13088
Scapa North America, Inglewood: 540 North Oak St, Inglewood CA, 90302
WEBTEC Converting, LLC: 5900 Middle View Way, Knoxville TN, 37909 Phone: 865.584.8273


I should also mention to other buyers that I had heard stories of "If you ask, you'll get a free roll of tape", I believe that to be the case with the ones sold direct by Sergej, but I bought mine from eBay seller: "is..ma", and he did not have tape to give. Incidentally, mine didn't come in a case either, just wrapped in paper and bubble wrap. No worries, awesome razor at a great price. Used it again this morning!

I have this feeling thet Scapa is becoming the holy grail of tapes.