Thread: Japanese razors, for right handed people only?

Originally Posted by Kanemitsu

I posted those razors I made in the gallery a while back. Old School, even looking at my Iwasaki razor I do not see how you percieve the edge cants towards the concave side. With a half width hollow
on the bevel concave side, and a full width hollow on the other side, the geometry of the blade makes the edge cant towards the full hollow side in my eye. I have trouble posting on my home computer so stopped posting. Lets see if this makes it through.

You can't see on the iwasaki how the edge cants to the concave side? Just look at the razor from the toe end down the spine, its so obvious how the entire edge bends towards the concave side of the blade. Every traditional Japanese razor is like that. Maybe an elephant sat on yours and bent it back. (just trying to be funny)

Funny, I don't recall mentioning anything about the edge canting to one side.
But that said I have a dozen Japanese razors staring me in the face right now including 2 Tamahagane Iwasaki razors, and all their edges are canted. If yours isn't canted, then one can only assume you have a Frankenrazor that the Bigspendur was talking about.

Yeah, I've made a few lefties, as well as some with symmetrical western style bevels. They all shave the same, no matter which side you use.

I, personally, find the shorter blade length to be favorable. The one sided use issue has been discussed, at length, before with the conclusion always being that the design intent seems to be for one sided use, but actual practice shows no huge difference.

OK I see I have mixed up which side you guys refer to as the concave and convex side. Since both sides are hollow ground I see you mean the side with the full width hollow, the side the steel is welded
to the iron is the concave side. The side with the half width hollow and flat you are refering to as the
convex side.

As obvious as that should have been to me, even I didn't pay attention to the hollow on the convex side (dangit). So the blade I have is double hollow and canted.

I don't think I would ever characterize a typical Japanese blade as hollow ground in any way. Certainly the convex side ain't. The concave side is kind of a modified hollow but unlike any western razor.

When we talk about concave and convex we mean the convex is domed out in appearance while the concave is, well, hollow grind in appearance.

Myself, and I believe any bladesmith, would consider any primary bevel that is concave to be hollow ground.

Both sides of kamisori are hollow ground. There is no convex side. There is a front and a back; the omote and ura. There really is no need to create one's own descriptive when accurate terminology already exist

The key is being flexible with the nomenclature until both parties realize they are talking about the same thing using different words. But, that has led to some serious confusion over the years about a lot of different things, not just razors.

Given our methods for honing, the secondary bevel will be flat on any razor. Despite how the maker gets rid of the extra material that seems to be consistent. For the most part, the knifemakers I know also have secondary bevels on their blades, but there are a few who can run a hollow grind right down to a fine edge and some who leave everything convex much like an axe edge. Just a difference in purpose, I suppose.

Ok, so the bottom line is, can a left hooker comfortably use a Japanese blade that apparently favours right handed persons?

I'm left handed and have been using Japanese blades for some time now.