Thread: Blade Hardness in relation to age and place of manufacture

Hi all,

over a fair few restorations I've noticed an appreciable difference - between razors in a similiar state of decay in the time/effort involved that I'm largely blaming on blade hardness. I think the main reason I've noticed is that all the tough ones seem to be of German manufacture, I'm not sure if this is just coincidence

The other factor is age - all the German razors I've restored have been relatively modern - around 1930's to 1950's. All the other blades I've worked on are old Sheffields, the most recent can't be newer than 1910.

Now I'd expect there would be a general trend/availability for harder steels as manufacturing technique improved over the years but is there any evidence of national trends? Did the Germans make harder razors or were UK makers doing the same thing (and I just haven't noticed as I don't have any 'modern' examples)? I know this is potentiallyfurther complicated as German manufacturers used Sheffield steel tho' I don't know if the end makers were carrying out final heat treatment.

Anyone got any insights, am I imaging things or maybe there's something in wet'n'dry paper that drives you mad...

I can confirm your observations from my limited honing/restoration experience. All my 19th century Sheffield wedges have had buttery soft steel compaired to my überhard 20th century Solingens.

From my experiences, Sheffields seem to be on the softer side (with some exceptions....), Solingens tend to be harder, and Swedish tend to be harder still. Americans tend to be on the hard side as well.

All just generalizations, of course.

Also, who's to say that harder is better? I personally don't like hard, wedge-y blades at all. Though I will say that for full hollows, I prefer harder to softer... most of the time.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Also, who's to say that harder is better? I personally don't like hard, wedge-y blades at all. Though I will say that for full hollows, I prefer harder to softer... most of the time.

I didn't have any intent of implying harder was better or worse - just if others had noticed anything similiar. Tho' from a restoration point of view softer certainly makes life easier!

In his book, "Hatcher's Notebook," Major General Julian Hatcher did a treatise on the Springfield '03 rifles that were suffering blown receivers during WWI. (link) What the US Army determined was that when smiths were heat treating the receivers they were gaging the temperatures by eye. Going by the color of the receiver. Upon further investigation it was found that the temps might vary considerably depending on whether it was a sunny or an overcast day.

Now I know the pyrometer, to check the temp of steel in heat treat, had already been developed by the 1800s but I'm betting that a lot of the Sheffield blade smiths, like those at Springfield Armory, used the eye to gage the temperature of the steel when doing the heat treat. Hence a difference from razor to razor. I don't "know" if that is a viable answer but it is the only one I have.