Thread: New build questions

Hey everybody, I'm here on request from my father who wants to get into shaving with a straight razor and has asked me to build him one.

I have experience making knives (Mostly handling them from blanks). I've taken a blacksmithing class and forged my own knife, so I understand some heat treating and grinding, but I don't have a lot of equipment in that regard and I am bad at sharpening and honing.

So, I am thinking of cutting out the blank for the blade and shaping it before sending it off to a maker for final grinding, heat treating, sharpening, honing etc. so that it still has a home made style to our specifications but has a blade put on it by an expert.

The wood we've already bought. We'll be using Mexican Cocobolo with a Kingwood wedge. I have worked with the Kingwood before, and while it is a bit of a pain to work, it is really beautiful and takes a polish well with a little wax.

Questions I have:

What do I need to be aware of with straight razor design that might be different from a common knife?

What is a good steel? It needs to take a good, sharp edge. However, he'll also be learning honing and sharpening for the first time on it, so it should also be durable and fairly easy to sharpen. I'm sure that's a unicorn steel but I'm still curious what the recommendations are.

Who can I find that would put a finish on a blade and what might I expect to pay for such a service?

What is a good thickness of steel to work from? I'll be shaping the blade but let whoever I send it to grind it to the final bevel and put the edge on it, so what would both be easy for them to work and result in a good blade profile?

Are washers usually used in the pins to keep the blade moving smoothly? I plan on using brass pinstock and peening it before grinding it flush.

Also, if it matters, I will be using stock removal versus forging.

Thanks in advance. Already I can tell this is a very helpful community!

De ja vue . Welcome to SRP :<0)

Umm you have a lot of questions .. Each has a video or 50 on the subject. You could probably find out faster doing a little reading in here.

As for guys that work on razors you could look at custom build threads or go to the classifieds and check out the listings there.

If you can make a blade the rest should be easy enough. Really.

Oh yes. Thank you 10pups. Never meant the first thread to become the build question thread since I wanted to keep everything in the right forum, so that explains the double posting. Thank you for the welcome

It's all good. The thing is there are a lot of variables to making a razor. O1 would be a good start for metal or maybe 1095. We still on the same page together ? You going to want to water quench or oil. What hardness are you shooting for. What blade profile > how wide ? Your going to have to shape and then heat treat and the final grind so you have to formulate some things according to what you want in the end. Wider blade thicker spine etc. See what I mean ? You should look around and find more pertinent questions. Otherwise you asking for a whole new library in a thread :<0)

Maybe start by posting a sketch and some dimensions :<0) If you start a build we can follow along and guide you in.

Since the spine acts as a honing guide on a razor to get an inclusive bevel angle of 15 to 20 degrees the thickness should be 1/4 to 1/3.5 of the blade width. So 1/4" material will be good for an 8/8 or 7/8 razor.

I see you are in the United States. So am I. Drop over sometime and I'll show you some things.

Just kidding. There may be someone close to you though who could give you a few pointers in person if you gave a less general location.

I don't like giving too much of a specific location, but I am in the Northeast Florida area.

We ordered a couple sets of scales from knifekits.com. Great website with 2 day shipping. Got two bookmatched sets of Mexican Cocobolo and one of Panamanian - figured we'd use the one that came out the best and keep the other two for other projects since I'm always working on something.

I also placed an order for steel today. 1/4" 1085 Carbon Steel. Hoping to get that within the next week or so.

The plan first is to create a mock up on paper and then cut it out of a reasonably stiff material like cardboard or maybe even thin plywood. Pin it so that it rotates easily and then fit the mock up to a comfortable hand fit and then use that to shape the razor and handles.

Once that's done, I'll shape the steel. I'll probably end up drawing the design on the steel stock, drilling holes around the design with the drill press, and then cutting out the holes with a hacksaw or maybe with a diamond cutter on my dremel. I'm pretty limited on tools right now but I've done a lot with hand tools.

After that it will be a lot of time with my hand held belt sander, files, and sandpaper. I'll work out the general blade design and drill the pin hole. I'll then mark the blade profile I want and send it to somebody to have it hollow ground, sharpened, heat treated, and honed. I'm sure I can find somebody on the forums that would be willing to take care of this part. I know it's an important part of learning, but at this point I would rather pay for that part to be done right and know I can trust it.

I'll rough shape the handles while the razor is gone, and when I get it back I'll do the final fitting and pinning. I'll be using brass pins and peening them into the handles. The handle material will be a 3 piece construction. The outer scales will be whatever cocobolo we choose, with a kingwood wedge.

I will of course post pictures.

I hope that you will take the time to see how this man makes a razor/he will show step by step. If nothing else you can see the differences between making a knife and a straight razor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvFO3TqhDj0

As far as to who would hone your creation, there are many who are very talented it would be up to them to come forward and offer to help

I do hope this has been of some help.

Originally Posted by cudarunner

I hope that you will take the time to see how this man makes a razor/he will show step by step. If nothing else you can see the differences between making a knife and a straight razor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvFO3TqhDj0

As far as to who would hone your creation, there are many who are very talented it would be up to them to come forward and offer to help

I do hope this has been of some help.

Cuda, did not mean to give the impression I had not watched the video. Between work, my band, and my girlfriend I've only been able to devote a few minutes at a time to this, but I have watched nearly half way into the video and so far it is very helpful

Edit: also see now I gave off the impression that I eat volunteering someone to help for free, but I definitely will pay fair wage for fair work when that time comes.

I'm also going to take some time to read through the library here and finish the video you've linked to before starting into anything big