Thread: A Sad Tale...

Originally Posted by Joed

As soon as I heard about the boiling water I would have written off that razor and it's owner. The boiling water is hot enough to alter the temper and stresses in the steel and how it was cooled off afterwards is anyone's guess.

I doubt that water at 212F could alter the temper.

Originally Posted by regularjoe

Just another vote for an an obvious operator induced injury. Whether by rotary tool, waterspout, or floor, this razor came in contact with something other than skin, linen, and leather. My .02 FWIW.

That's my gut-feeling too. BUT - I would like to give the owner the benefit of the doubt if possible, which is why I posted here to see if there could be another reason for the damage, like poor metal, etc. It was a NOS blade, dating to the 50s or 60s, and I have sold many from the same batch with no problems, though. I didn't even work on the blade - it was in near pristine condition. It never came near a power wheel. I just removed the scales which were a bit cheap looking and fitted new ones, then reset the bevel and honed it, like I always do.

I always check the bevel under magnification, on both sides and after it comes off each hone as well as after stropping. I would have noticed any incipient cracks, I'm sure.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

I don't think so - I reckon that the temper temperature is somewhere around 425 degrees F, whereas boiling water in an open container is around 212 degrees F.

Regards,
Neil

I'd agree with this. The lowest temper that I'm aware of in any tool steel is white #1, which has more carbon than most (and at the high end, probably all) razors and nothing or near nothing (like tungsten, etc) to increase the temper temperature. And it would be unaffected by boiling in water.

If anything, I would think that a boil might improve the temper of the steel, but it's most likely that it would do nothing.

A chip like that is evidence that the razor was either too hard tempered to begin with and knocked against something, pushed into something or caught on something (the hard temper wouldn't matter, anyway).

The dremel may be a good supposition, too. I suspect (and that's all we can do) that more is known that is not being relayed.

If not, something was wrong with the razor before that may not have been evident until it got some heavy handed treatment of some sort, but the boiling didn't cause the problem.

Neil,

At first I thought they were just using boiling water to clean the blade. When you next mentioned barbicide and disinfecting, it reinforced another of my first thoughts. I would bet the blade was exposed to a direct flame to disinfect it. There was a thread just a couple of days ago in "The Workshop" titled "a candle and a blade". It was about disinfecting. I guess more than a few think that's the way to do it.

Howard

Edit: I guess much of my reasoning is the discolorization of the metal.

Its possible, Howard.

When I was told about the tarnish I offered to remove it and re-hone the blade free of charge (I would have had to re-hone it as I would have used a buffer to remove the tarnish), but the offer was not taken up. It would have been nice to see the actual state of the blade at the time.

Regards,
Neil

I'm not an expert , but it seems to me that if the blade was going to fall apart ,it would have fallen apart when it was being honed . Not when it was being shaved with . The boiling water immersion , and standing in said water , should be grounds to void any warranty (IMHO) . I don't see how that razor could get that kind of damage , any way other than , abuse .

When I was learning about razors I damaged & ruined quite a few razors with a dremel & later with a buffer is why I mentioned this, looks like some of the damage I did to razors. The serrated edge makes me think of the wire brush.

Would be interesting to know the real truth though....

Originally Posted by shooter74743

When I was learning about razors I damaged & ruined quite a few razors with a dremel & later with a buffer is why I mentioned this, looks like some of the damage I did to razors. The serrated edge makes me think of the wire brush.

Would be interesting to know the real truth though....

Ditto all of that, have done the same, though just one "pling!!!" from the wire brush and one razor that I blued a noncritical part on hard felt. It's easy to damage them that way, not so easy with boiling water (pretty darn near impossible).

Originally Posted by PensacolaTiger

I doubt that water at 212F could alter the temper.

I have seen metals fracture with less temperature deviations. If you look up the definition and process of tempering you will find that some of the metal is locked in a transition even after a second temper. Recommended temperatures for tempering are to achieve the most conversion of the molecules from transition to a natural state thus relieving stresses. Any temperature will allow a metal to convert the transition molecules, an elevated temp for a prolonged period will enhance the rate. I expect that is what caused the blade to chip over time.

Wouldn't you think a prolonged soak in low heat, if anything, would promote a more complete tempering, and more toughness, and (what seems like a foreign possibility to me) less hardness if anything?

I'm thinking that we are dealing with a plain carbon steel or something very close to it here, else the erosion probably wouldn't have been there.