Thread: 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.


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.

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.