Thread: Shumate Tungsteel

Just seeing if anyone has any info about the mentioned razor. I bought one off of ebay, knowing it was a shumate and needed some resto work. Bought it since it had a nice smiling blade. Upon inspection of it I noticed it says "Shumate's Tungsteel" on one side of the tang, figured it must be some alloy of tungsten but definately not tungsten-carbide. I did a little reading on wiki and if it was tungsten-carbide it'd be near impossible to scratch - I've already scratched it plenty removing rust. Tungsten-carbide is supposedly four times harder than titanium.

Just thought I'd see if anyone has any info on these razors. I'm guessing it having some tungsten is probably part of the reason I'm having so much trouble with the pitting on it, even with the 80 grit emery cloth sandpaper I have. Scratch lines on it now are after the 120 grit emery cloth.

Mine cleaned up with not alot of elbow grease, but it wasn't in to bad a shape to start. It honed up easy enough and has held that edge very well.

As for having tungsten in the mix, don't really know but some of my kitchen knives are suposed to have a trace of it in them and they stay wicked sharp

Back in those days there were no consumer protection laws so manufacturers made all kinds of wild claims about their products. You'll see all kinds of names on razors (carbo magnetic, tungsteel, manganese steel ,moly steel, etc) and they all are right because they contain traces of all these things but in the end they are just plain vanilla carbon steel but shumate is still a high quality U.S razor that will shave with the best of them.

If it was Tungsten-carbide you wouldn't be able to scratch it with normal sandpaper. It takes diamond tools to polish the stuff....

I see! Maybe it just takes a lot more time at low grit to remove pitting then. Thanks.

Man, tungsten carbide is heavy. Has a dark, grey-ish color too. You would be able to tell it wasn't normal steel the second you picked it up.