Thread: Pechika Yasuki

Yeah 64 65 Rockwell seems a little far fetched we are talking Rockstead knife hardness there, talking of your razor if it were 62 Rockwell which is still very hard and you are not likely to find anything harder in the razor world barring a Iwaski Tamahagane western style folding razor which I believe went up to rockwell 67.

Originally Posted by celticcrusader

Yeah 64 65 Rockwell seems a little far fetched we are talking Rockstead knife hardness there, talking of your razor if it were 62 Rockwell which is still very hard and you are not likely to find anything harder in the razor world barring a Iwaski Tamahagane western style folding razor which I believe went up to rockwell 67.

I've seen a lot of iwasaki's discussions about a razor that "should be about 67" or so. I would imagine that if he said that, he had a reason to. I'm not going to be the first person to see if it turns into shards in a rockwell tester (where would you test it, anyway, on the tang? that may not be representative).

I've found (not in any way that I have proof) that once edges get to a certain hardness, they don't behave on a strop the way I'd like them to. They are almost strop resistant and they have to be dead on super perfect from the stones.

My interest in all of this stuff about the pechika, is because that after using a lot of white steel #2 tools, I expected it to be something similar to white #2, and I really felt like I would probably get a collectible razor out of white #2 that in practice ends up not being as good to use as a simple "silver steel" or vintage german labeled razor. I'm glad to find out that I was wrong!

I'll probably not ever sell it, so it doesn't matter much, anyway. I already dropped the case it's in, which led to cracked scales at the bottom pin. Bummer! One thing is for sure, you crack scales on a $200 razor, and it's yours for good!! Doesn't matter how good of a repair job you do.

I've seen Iwasaki Tamahagane J-West boxes with hardnesses indicated as 67 (converted to Rockwell).

This being said, I have no idea how this figure is obtained, though I know they do vary from box to box.

I would imagine they would use a small piece of metal from the same batch as the razor then after they temper and quench the razor along with the small piece of metal I would guess they would then apply the Rockwell test to that piece then obviously apply the same hardness to the razor.