Thread: Kansas Kamisori!

Originally Posted by Bruno

It looks like the really bad pitting that you get left with when you polish a rusted blade with a buffer wheel or a dremel with a felt wheel.
The rust is gone and the blade is shiny, but the damage remains.

EDIT: It could also be water droplets on an oily surface. The pic is overexposed so it is hard to tell, but my guess is that it is pitting.
I could be wrong of course.

That is indeed dust on the well oiled surface of the Tosuke. It had been oiled up ready to ship out to its' new owner when the Rusuke arrived. I didn't bother cleaning off the oily shmutz before taking the pic.

That Tosuke is all of two weeks old, there certainly is no pitting!

Originally Posted by OLD_SCHOOL

So you sold the Tosuke coz your "a round point guy" and buy one with an even scarier point?

That's a swell looking razor Russ, the barber notch type point, that's pretty scary when you first see it though. Definitely have to keep your eye on that or its for sure.

Check the detailed drawings for safety that was engineered in from the beginning!

Do you have any trouble maintaining the proper shaveing angle with that kind of razor?

WOW!!! I want one!!!

Some more photos...

Wow Russel!!!
I am rarely moved to compliment, but I must say that that is exceptional work!!

Very nice design. It is a great take on this great razor.

OK, so here's the first impression shave review:


Firstly, I must once again say what a fantastic job Russel did on this razor.

As you can see, he pretty much created a razor to my exact specifications. It looks almost exactly like the Solidworks 3D rendering.

Yet, as the mark of a true artisan, he didn't simply fabricate an object, but made it a thing of beauty, and put his own personal touch on it. The overall shape, form, etc, was my design, but the craftsmanship is excellent, and the beauty of the hamon and the way it fades from sateen finish, through the hamon into the polished section is really a work of art! Again, my hat's off to Russel for the outstanding work.

The other addition/improvement to my original design is that he added a slight smile to the blade, which I have always found adds to the comfort and shaveability of any razor.

So, I gave it it's first sojourn through the wilderness of my whiskers last night. I hadn't shaved in four days (I was away all weekend) so there was quite a good testbed for how this baby would handle the rough stuff.

Firstly: the edge Russel put on the razor was excellent. I have never shaved with a razor not honed by myself, so that was a new experience unto itself. HHT pre-shave seemed quite similar to the results I get with my edges, so I didn't touch a thing, just stropped it and had at it. Very sharp. Nice!

If I may be so bold: Russel, can you share what honing progression you used to finish off this razor?

The shave:The razor had no issues whatsoever dealing with the 4 day's worth of whiskers. Being a non-traditional design did take some adjusting to (I'll say more about that in a moment..), but the razor performed very, very well. The slightly rounded toe was indeed forgiving (as always, that is a relative term in the realm of straights, isn't it!) and the short cutting edge handled like a sports car on my face.

In my mind, the most outstanding part of the razor is that for whatever reason this razor feels an awful lot like Sheffield steel! If any of you know what I mean by that. Obvioulsy this razor has a very beefy grind, so in that respect it behaves quite "wedgey", but the certain quality that a heavy Sheffield blade has, the way that a very sharp edge still feels very, very smooth on your skin has been captured by Russel's metalurgical skills. My 1/4 grind LeGrelot is a wedgy blade, but for whatever reason it has never felt as smooth as my vintage W&B wedge, nor now this razor either. A very smooth shaver. Even when doing some water only blade buffing, the scary sharp edge felt smooth and glided easiliy across my skin

The design: So, whoever designed this thing was some kind of genius! He somehow knew exactly what I'd like in a razor!

I'd like to say that the razor was a result of "intelligent design", but then that may start whole different sort of thread between Russel and myself....

OK, so I really like the looks of this razor, and for the most part I am really looking forward to becoming more familiar with using it,as it it a very non-tradition design, yet the first try was already a comfortable shave.
The one MAJOR flaw in my design was that I put a rounded spine on the thing! Essentially what that did was to make obselete the cool thumbnotch. When I'd try and hold it in a "traditional" manner-thumb in the thumbnotch, fingers above, it was very difficult to maintain an angle. I pondered this a little bit, and then realized what had happened--ALL razors have the back of the tang flat for a reason, so that you can hold the razor securely and control the shave angle.

So, I opted for a modified grip using the flat portions of the handle, sort of some kind of flashlight grip if you will (hard to describe). This was not ideal for with the grain passes (but not that bad really), but really kicked some ass when going against the grain. The long handled grip when going vertical ATG was fanatastic. I just wrapped my hand all the way around the handle and it was extremely secure and adroit. And actually at that point I was able to use the thumbnotch quite effectively, even though the blade was inverted.

The humpback/blade offset was pretty cool, and seemed to give you the blade angle control of a wider blade, but with the dexterity and better visibility of a narrower one.

I want to modify the razor and flatten out the back of the spine, as I'd then gain use of the thumbnotch and "traditional" grip for certain areas of the shave that I was not able to make use of this time.

Results:
It's about 12 hours since I shaved, and I'm still nicely BBS!

1,000 thanks and more to Russel for the effort put into this excellent razor!

And one other point: this review of the razor is pretty much useless to all you guys out there, as there is NO WAY I'm ever going to let this one go! Perhaps my son will inherit it, but other than that, this thing is staying in my possesiion until you pry it from my cold dead fingers!

Unless, of course Russel goes into production on these things, in which case I heartily recommend you buy one!

This just made my day!

As for the gripping/thumbnotch issues, keep trying to use it as per traditional grip, you should be able to make it work. I guess I've grown used to using these kinds of razors with the traditional razor grip, and don't notice if one is a little different, but I did get this one to work with out grabbing the sides to make a pass. I would gladly make any modification to it if you really decide you want it changed, though.

I can't say how much of a compliment you've paid me by comparing my work to old sheffield steel; that's exactly what I'm shooting for!

As for the honing progression, I start (after I've set a bevel on the DMTs) with an old coticule that is a mean steel cutter (but it still leaves a smooth edge, ah the wonder of the coticule...) to remove the lower grit scratches, then hit an Escher to make the edge smooth and sharp, when the edge doesn't seem to be progressing anymore (with arm hair tests) I add a layer of tape and do some super light passes on my Nakayama Kiita to finish out the progression, then hit a leather strop and do a test shave. Repeat any step that seems necessary as per results of test shave.

So the edge is just a result of the Nakayama, nothing special on my behalf (except maybe a little voodoo that I practice as a hobby )

Thanks again for the review!

Nakayama, eh? Hmmm, well I must say I enjoy the edge you got off of there, vodoo or not, it works quite well!

Now then....I submit to your possible horror, pics of my personal modification to your beautifully crafted razor.

The razor now has a spanish point notch, thumbnotch, and topside notch!

Someone stop me before I notch again!


I used a drum sander (I think that's what it is called...it is a table, with a little oscillating rotating sander barrel sticking up out of it) and held the razor flat on the table with a liberally wet paper towel to aid in heat dissapation. I ground in a notch where I thought it should go. Took about two minutes.

The razor now feels as if I have much better pitch, roll, and yaw control when using the thumb/top notch grip.