Thread: Share your tricks to centering a blade in scales.

I bet a lot of us have spent the time making that perfect set of scales encluding the wedge, drilling the pin holes as perfect as can be. Then put it together and find the blade doesnt center. And possibly was out of whack so the edge hits the scale edge. I know ive ran across this a time or two. Or three or four or.....

So, share your tricks to help get a perfectly centered blade. Ive read about a few ways recently but thought it would be good to share with all. So that someday you might need this info and be able to find it. Not like trying to find something in the "what are you working on" thread.

So post up how and why with as much detail as possible. Some of us are a little slow (me) so we need simple but detail explanations.

Thinning the end of one scale is the best method I have found.
Finding the exact area to reduce helps.

I always glue one side of the wedge, and tighten this pin last. Don't get me wrong, I still mess up.

I preach and practice "tap, tap, tap", not whack, whack, whack with a small ball pien hammer. I have found that nothing is foolproof.

If your razor has a hole larger than your pins, use sleeves. More often than not, a bent pen will happen if things don't start out snug. I recently had this one shown to me by a mentor friend on a razor exchange to compare edges.

I've had success with using JB weld instead of pivot pin sleeves. If my blade is straight with no problems I would use a sleeve, but the JB Weld allows me to drill the pivot hole on an angle.
This angled pivot hole is not a fix all, as other little tricks are good to implement. And there's probably other better ways, this is just one I've used.

These things work well for me.

Assure that the sides of the wedge are flat to start with; Sand paper almost always leaves a high center on the wedge. I lay a smooth file on the bench and scrape the wedge against it, like lapping a hone, till the surface is flat. Use a light to see that all is flat and the same visual surface.

Leaving the center of the hole at correct diameter, I taper both end diameters of the hole toward the center.

I slightly dish, by scraping, (half a paper thickness) each side of the wedge to its edges, leaving a slight hollow which will allow the ends of the scales to be tight around the wedge even if the scales are wiggled during pinning.

Gluing on scale to the wedge has not worked for me.

Trim the wedge to final edge with the scales after doing the pinning.
JMO, YMMV
~Richard
PS. Sounds like a lot of work but is actually adding only about two minutes to the job...how much does fixing an un-centered blade take?

Richard I'm a little slow sometimes, how does the wedge affect the centering of the blade?
How does adjusting the wedge change the centering?
I just need a better visual understanding described or shown.

EDIT: I also like to do the final tightening of the wedge after the blade is set. This was a big one for me when on accident I did it and was surprised by the results!

Originally Posted by MikeT

Richard I'm a little slow sometimes, how does the wedge affect the centering of the blade?
How does adjusting the wedge change the centering?
I just need a better visual understanding described or shown.

Take a credit card, by one end,between the thumb and index finger of your hand. Move them in opposite directions. The other end of the credit card moves to left or right or up and down or both.
Hope that did it.
~Richard

My Solution

Before I start the scales I check the razor

This simple step eliminates so many issues for me because I know in advance that the razor is going to be "Off" that allows me to bake the "Fix" into the cake







Now if you know this before the build you can begin using any of the tricks we all know ahead of time

Charlie aka Spazola made a great graphic about how to move them years ago that you can find
here and in the Sticky of this forum

https://straightrazorpalace.com/work...tml#post905657