Thread: Very small fractures on the blade

First off, I'll talk about my general care and use of my razor.

I shave everyday with my razor, and afterwards I always clean the blade, tang, ect, with a square of toilet paper. I also strop my razor roughly every 7-9 days. While stropping I use the linen side with green stropping paste first, (10 up and down "complete" passes) then I use the clean linen side (20 complete passes) and I clean the leather side and do 60 complete passes. I never dropped it once, and I take care of it to the best of my ability.

Today I noticed after stropping my straight razor two extremely small fractures on the blade itself. I noticed when I was running a square of toilet paper across the blade that it catches it slightly, and when I hold it to the light there are two small dark fractures. In the back of my head I know I will need to hone it, but I do need advice about how I should hone a straight razor with these fractures on the blade, and how I can prevent this from happening in the future.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Any chance you can post pix ? First off I would day stropping on green paste .... chrom-ox I assume ? .... daily is too much of a good thing. Anyway, if the 'fractures' are cracks you may be fighting a losing battle. Depends on how far they go. What caused them is beyond me ?

Thats not a good thing tell us more about the razor.

It is a Thiers-Issard 5/8 Sheffield silver steel full hollow blade. I tried to take a picture of the fractures, but I don't have a camera that is able to focus on the blade or take a picture that is a high enough resolution to see the problem.

I am an amateur at this so please don't take this as wisdom-but sometimes fresh eyes...

Could your large amount of stropping on a regular basis be thinning the blade too much?

Also, if the metal was not treated correctly with annealing etc (which i'm sure even TI have a bad day!) then the stresses within that metal would not have been relieved, and the extra-fine job you have done thinning the blade has taken the support away from microscopic sections and the fractures are the result.

Hope that gives you something else to think about!

mahtay

Classic is somewhere out in CA .... maybe close enough to bring it there, or a member is close by who could take a look ? Do you have magnification , microscope, eye loupe ? Are they hairline fractures that don't go completely through one side to the other ? Cracks that do ? TBH, if they are cracks and they run up through the bevel into the belly of the blade then it is toast IMHO. If you bought it new you might could ask the vendor to look into a warranty replacement.

Jimmy: I do use chromium oxide paste for my stropping, and the good news is that I have a picture that shows the problem. I just had to use my headlamp to shine the light at the right angle on the blade. Though I hope it isn't a "losing battle" as you say. It's not that it's an issue on price, it's more about this being my razor, and it being a beautiful work of art.

Mahtay: I wasn't aware that I was stropping it too much. I'll look into it and change my habits wherever needed. When I troubleshoot computers I always look at the basics and move up, I should probably apply the same principle to my maintenance habits.





A much better picture

Maybe see a couple tiny chips,hard to say,Your not going to fracture a blade with stropping normally.Bevel also looks a little strange.

Are you sure you've never had a run-in with the "faucet demon", or gone too high on your strop so as to hit the metal fasteners? The close-up picture looks alot like blades I've seen (unfortunately, 1 was my own) that have met something besides whiskers? It appears that the gouges go well into the bevel, which in most cases, can be fixed...just my 2 cents worth. I hope all turns out well for ya, and welcome aboard!
Nick

I find this odd, very good brand of razor, no abuse to the blade. Must be stress in the steel or something happened during shipping.

Well only real hope is to hone it out, slowly, keep checking with magnification to ensure you don't take off more steel then you need to. I hope your cracks don't extend to far. Nobody here likes to see a razor become unusable!

I have a small crack on my oldest razor, a sheffield with a nice smile. But it's back on the heel, and with the smile i never use that part of the blade. So I'm trying to ignore it as long as I can.

Let us know how it works out.
Nathaniel.