Thread: Kamisori experts’ opinion is welcome

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

As Above,is not a crack,believe it is called a homan (SP) present in most of my Kamisori.
Slur,hard to explaine but when you start your wrap,say at the end of the handle,lay about an inch of material flat on the handle,start the wrap at the very end and wrap over the one inch piece,keep wrapping toward the blade,when you get about 1/2 inch from the blade end of the wrap,lay a piece of strong fine nylon twine or fishing line with a loop on the handle,wrap over that,put the end of your material thru the loop and pull the material thru and under the final wrappings,than cut off the excess,no knots.Hope it works for you.

it is not hamon, hamon is a result of differential treatment of a single piece of steel like this
http://red-dragonfly-sword.com/uploa...hi_hamon01.jpg

Most Kamisori are forge welded and therefore does not have a hamon, I have not seen mono steel kamisori althought they might exsit.

Hello all,

Since I am new here and this is my first post let me introduce myself. I am a bladesmith in Texas working in the Japanese tradition. I concentrate on swords (Katana, Wakazashi, Tanto etc.) But I have also done extensive work making woodworking planes.

I am a complete newbie to straight razor shaving and I am certainly no expert on kamisori but maybe I can add to this discussion.

Mainaman is correct. The kamasori, like almost all quality Japanese plane irons, chisels and many knives has a high carbon, hardenable steel insert forge welded to a low carbon soft steel or iron body.

The argument that this saves the expensive steel for where it is needed is a good one. In times past, producing high carbon steel was time consuming and expensive proposition.

There are other considerations as well, Having a soft steel substrate allows the cutting edge to be harder. The harder the steel the more prone it is to chipping-like glass. The soft steel or iron can help absorb and dissipate the forces that may otherwise chip the blade.

A hamon, as Manaman says, is a product of differential heat treatment on hardenable steel.
It is clever way to have a hard cutting edge and flexible back. Very useful in swords and some knives-not so much in plane blades, chisels and I assume kamisori.

That is practically speaking. aesthetically speaking, a well done hamon can add a great deal of visual appeal to a blade.

Been thinking about trying my hand a making a kamisori but am soaking up as much info as I can before putting hammer to steel.

Great place ya'll have here.

Razors like those are the ones I would love to get my hands on. I mean come on, who is going to have a Razor like that??

That's a very nice Tsurayuki!

つらゆき