Thread: Strange bubbly kind of blade surface

it honed nicely,.. so that's it

I can not make a shorty since it is not mine, additionally it wasn't ment for a restore, just for a honing for a guy that bought it and wanted to give it a go ..

Originally Posted by miha

it honed nicely,.. so that's it

I can not make a shorty since it is not mine, additionally it wasn't ment for a restore, just for a honing for a guy that bought it and wanted to give it a go ..

We're here to help those out in need & thank you for helping this guy out. It makes a difference in the attitude of everyone on here. I help out whenever I can, especially to beginners.

Originally Posted by miha

it honed nicely,.. so that's it

That's what counts.

Looks to me like somebody used a really tight wire wheel against that blade. It may have had some rust and they decided to use the power tools on it. I've made similar marks on steel with wire wheels running at high rpm's and fairly heavy pressure applied to the wheel.

I have seen something similar back in the day. One of the best rust remover around was Navel Jelly. It was very good, but if it has not been removed or cleaned properly it would continue to attack the surface. I have never seen this on a razor, but it is similar to damage I have seen

It's just the result of simple corrosion, isn't it? Tiny metal particles in water provide a nucleus for the beginnings of corrosion, which goes under the surface and which usually looks much worse with the surface tarnish removed. Obviously, the edge has been in direct contact with water for some time for whatever reason - the insides of the scales were wet maybe, and the razor put away before it had time to dry. Razors are hollow ground to a greater or lesser extent, so it follows that a drop of water could sit on the upper surface and not the lower.

The 'bubbling' is just rusting - it provides a thin skin over the nascent pit, creating a micro-climate that propagates more pitting downwards into the metal while the top skins over and bubbles due to further waste products.

When I used to maintain my own vehicles, many times what looked at first glance like a greyish tarnish on a metal member often revealed a whole multitude of large and small pit-holes once a stripping wheel took the surface layer off.

Maybe its just me, but I have seen it on plenty of razors and on other steel implements - I just don't get what the mystery is...?

The extra dulling at the pin-holed area is there because some effort has been spent to remove some of the surface tarnish, with a wire wheel or similar as said above. A wasted effort if you ask me, but I suppose the razor is precious to the owner for some hard to fathom reason.

I would think that the least likely thing to have caused it is heat. Hint - with the amount of heat needed to cause that, it would not have honed properly - obvious, right?

Regards,
Neil

Yes. Like Neil said, while steel might look like that after it burnt (I've seen some truly awful cases of steel smallpox when I first started forging and didn't have a clue), this is very much not what you're looking at. If that part of the steel would have gotten hot enough for that to be burn pox, the rest of the blade would like similar, and the edge would have burnt away and what's left of the blade would have been covered in scales.