The greatest thing this hobby has given me

Six hours, maybe more, of hand sanding and grinding to get this near wedge clean and to fix the grind on the tang. One little tweak needed to address a warp , then it would have been final polish and start on the scales and this is the result.
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The interesting thing to me is the calmness with which I seem to handle these set backs now. Having spent hours and hours honing only to end up with an unusable razor and having to start all over again seems to have taught me a level of patience I never before possessed. This is the first time I've actually wrecked a blade, but I felt nothing more than mild irritation, no throwing teddy out of the pram, no making up new swear words, nothing and for that I am very thankful. Now, anyone have any ideas on what I could do with what's left? All I can think of is Western-kamisori hybrid.

Sorry, man.

That is a real shame.

Was the warp in the tang?

Yes Sir, it looked like a boomerang. The main problem though was the grind on the tang. It was so uneven that when I laid it flat on the tang, if you laid a spirit level across the spine and edge it was pretty much level. Turn it over and the edge almost touched the surface, hence the diamond plate and coarse stone. The really annoying thing is that I had it so close I could have left the warp and done the tweaking on the scales, but no...I used the test scales you can see in the picture to check and it was actually closing without touching the sides, albeit slightly off centre. Before I attempted to tweak it I ran a file over the tang and it was cutting, so I figured, "Sweet, I have a little bit of play here", but no. Thanks for the commiserations.

Ugh! For me, geometry problems are practically integral to straight razors. This probably has more to do with the zone I operate in.
I like perfect, and imperfection has been a heavy cross to bear.
puketui41: I just read your tagline....funny...changing some of the variables, I was sitting in a chair once using a razor sharp 1/4" chisel to carve a design in a piece of wood...kind of whittling, not really going anywhere. Everything was wrong after that..drinking, holding the piece in my left hand and pushing the chisel with my right towards my left hand,watchings TV, talking to my kids (I was clothed). Then, chisel skips and I jam it into the meat between my thumb and forefinger. It was the first time I have seen blood leave my body in an arc, pumping until I put pressure on it.
Anyway condolences.......that is tough to look at.

Here's the razor that prompted my tagline. I had almost completed a restoration on it, including original horn scales. You can see marks on the scales in the pictures, but I assure you they are only finger prints-everything was perfect. I had almost finished honing and as per my tagline was sitting in a chair, drunk and naked. I let myself be distracted for just a second and this 8/8 near wedge fell from my hand and landed on the ol' fella, luckily spine side down! The last photo is a box fix prior to colouring. I used the ouzo bottle because I bought the razor from a guy in Greece.
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OUCH!!!!!!!!!!

For the same reason, I keep a towel between my body and the sink.

Man that stinks! I have broken several razors, but none in that spot! You sounded like you were more calm than I was when I last broke one...

We're not done learning yet. Mistakes can always teach more than first thought.

Is it possible to take some close pictures of the broken ends? I'd really like to see the grain structure.

Clearly the blade/tang was hard enough to snap. Are there other conditions of the steel that we don't have a chance to see on the outside that contribute to the failure? I think probably and that would explain the warp.

I fully agree that the craft becomes a near meditative experience.

I'll have a look tomorrow, see if I can still get a picture. I actually superglued it back together with the idea that at least I could still use it. Then I got to thinking of the mess it would make if the glue failed mid stroke! Surprisingly, it took a bit of effort to snap it again. The structure thru the cracked section is crystalline, no inclusions.

Yeah, the glue might influence what is to be seen, but I was interested in the crystalline structure specifically. It would indicate some of the potential heat history of the steel depending on how grainy it appeared. It would make a good example for some of the home heat treaters that make their own blades. See what you can get...

Here's one I used to own, it looks to have had a bronze tang brazed/soldered on
http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...nge-razor.html

Oh my!


Mike

Since I weld a lot, I would probably try and weld the two pieces back together again, clean up the weld, and re heat treat the blade.

My condolences. I have broken a blade trying to "straighten" it out, now I just adjust the scales to the blade so it closes in line and center. Sharpton has a pretty good wip about his technique.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jfk742

My condolences. I have broken a blade trying to "straighten" it out, now I just adjust the scales to the blade so it closes in line and center. Sharpton has a pretty good wip about his technique.

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Mind sharing a link, or some info please? I have one like this, dont want to try and twist it back, but it won't fit the scales (hits on one side). So the only remedy is to adjust the scales I guess....?

Here are pictures of the fracture
Attachment 213168
Attachment 213169
Now that I look at the blown up photos it looks like inclusions in the top right of the first photo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Srdjan

Mind sharing a link, or some info please? I have one like this, dont want to try and twist it back, but it won't fit the scales (hits on one side). So the only remedy is to adjust the scales I guess....?

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Try searching 'Straightening a bent tang'. There are a lot of articles covering it. First you need to determine what the problem is. When you hold the tang in a set of scales does the centreline of the blade sit vertically? If not then the grind is probably unequal and needs to be fixed first by sanding or grinding or both. Once that's fixed, or if its not a problem, then you can look at fixing or compensating for any warping.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by criswilson10

Since I weld a lot, I would probably try and weld the two pieces back together again, clean up the weld, and re heat treat the blade.

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I was thinking of freezing it in a block of ice with the broken end of the tang sticking out, cutting a piece of tin can with a hole in it to fit over the broken end and form a barrier to the ice, then weld a fixed handle on it. Do you think it will work Chris?

Sho! That is heavy grain... i can almost not believe the blade looks like that... it wont hold a 15deg edge if it did... that looks as if it wasnt normalised after forging, or serious overheating during heat treat... would be 1095... should look smooth and grey...

I'll be interested to hear from others. Thanks Andre.

That grain structure screams bad heat treatment and normalizing.

After seeing that, forget icing the blade it needs to be re heat treated anyway. Weld the handle on however you want, clean up the weld, and do a full heat treatment on it. Brazzing with silver is probably the best option for appearance, brass would work as well - especially if you came back and plated the whole tang.

If you want to do a fixed wood handle on it, just grind back the broken off piece until square and weld about a foot of rectangular bar to it. (The extra long bar makes it easier to weld and clean up). Then cut the bar to length for the handle, drill two or more holes to hold the bar to the handle, and heat treat the whole thing.

Chris do you think that grain structure would support an edge that thin? I wonder if it didnt just get partially submerged during quench... therefore it broke near the quench line. Maybe that section stayed hot for too long leading to grain growth? Just speculating here

When you bring it up to weld temperature the grain structure will change. After welding it, you will need to heat treat it and the grain will change again - hopefully to small, fine grain. Then you normalize it.

To me it looks like it was haphazardly dropped into the quench and the stamped side cooled quicker than the nonstamped.

I am not sure the edge will survive a quench straight... but that might explain the warp

Quote:

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Originally Posted by puketui41

Here are pictures of the fracture...(pix clipped to save bandwidth) Now that I look at the blown up photos it looks like inclusions in the top right of the first photo

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I don't see any inclusions, but that is some largish-grainy stuff. There are many more fracture prone boundaries in large crystals than in smaller. Likely, it was hard enough according to the shop practice of the day and put into the pile of razors to be finished.

The largish crystals are the source of warping in some steels. Refining the size of the crystals can reduce the warping to a great degree. In the era this was manufactured, thermal cycling was an unknown.

As to the discussion about welding this tang back together...it can be done by a good welder, perhaps a good TIG operator, but yes, some sort of heat transfer barrier is absolutely necessary if you intend to not affect the heat treatment at the edge. I would be concerned about the heat affected zones where more grain growth could occur during the welding. You might fix the first weld and leave two more spots where another fracture could occur.

Or, fix the tang, then redo the heat treatment of the whole blade which would even out the concerns about localized zones of different heat histories in the whole blade/tang. But, that requires a very good heat treater and you are still likely to wind up with a potato chip edge unless you are really lucky. Salvaging that would lose some x/8 dimension.

Thanks again for the photos.

Wow the steel o1 i experimented with with grain that size didnt even keep a 15deg per side edge... satisfactorily... it was on a kitchen knife... so the demands are a bit harder...