Modding / Restoration WIP

[cotedupy]

Thought I'd post some pics of a little razor I picked up recently in an antiques shop, with some thoughts about what I sometimes like to do with handles and why. Here's my razor:



Cracked off the plastic scales, gave a little vinegar bath and clean up:





It's a bit difficult to read in that picture but on one side of the tang we have 'Walter Otton & Sons Exeter'. On the other that it's made from 'Kayser Ellison and Co's Best Sheffield Silver Steel', which I understand is a Good Thing. And then on the tail it says 'Germany'. Walter Otton and Sons was an old ironmonger and general hardware 'n' homeware type store apparently, so I'm assuming this was Sheffield steel, ground in Germany, and branded for them to sell (?). I mostly bought it because I was staying with my sister in Exeter, and I thought it'd be cool to have a razor from there.

I didn't have any of my handle making stuff with me, so I tried bevel setting on a Washita one day when I was bored. I use Washitas a lot for knives but had never tried one on a razor before, it worked surprisingly well in quite quick time.



Or at least it would have if I had done the sanding ground work properly - there were a couple of little pitting marks on the edge that I hadn't noticed / didn't come out. So had to go back to some coarser sandpaper and start over. Hey ho, no biggie!

Handle stuff to follow in Part 2...

[p.s. Is there a way to stop some of my pictures being posted on their side? Nothing I seem to do makes a difference]

[cotedupy]

When I got my first razor the person I got it from also included another old one for me to have a go at restoring. And I don't really have the wherewithal or wookworking ability to start making scaled and pinned handles, so I started thinking about other designs, specifically whether one could make a fixed, hidden tang handle as you would a Japanese knife.

The traditional scaled and hinged handle of a SR is a very good piece of design for shaving; it's ergonomic, adaptable, and protects the blade when not in use. I don't think you can really improve on it.

It is also a terrible piece of design for honing; it's too long, it's too bendy, it's too bent. It needs a lot more stability and axial symmetry.

So could I make a fixed handle that I thought worked just as well for shaving, but found better for honing...? Here's my process, this is now the 4th I've done for a razor.

This is some wood. On the left is a piece of Red Mallee burl (ferrule), middle is Olive (spacer), and the dark bits are some used winemaking oak staves (main part). The latter is quite cool; given to me by a winemaker friend, the wood is normally white but after time the wine soaks through and stains the wood dark. When I work this in a specific way it's going to come out almost black.



Epoxy 'em together:



Now you can't see in the picture above, but I've also done something else at this point which is quite important - I've drilled the tang hole in the main, dark part of the handle. And it doesn't have to be particularly neat as any gaps will get flooded with epoxy or glue during the install. What it means though is that later I only have to drill through the ferrule and spacer, and that's much easier to do accurately especially if you don't have a drill press and are just using a handheld electric drill like I do.

The initial shaping is done on a belt sander laid on it's side, up to about 80 or 120 grit:



Then my favourite part of the whole process - the first oiling. In Aus I usually use mineral/parrafin oil, but you can't seem to get it in the UK unless you buy 'Baby Oil', so instead I'm just using some oil for Teak. Oiling at this stage I find fixes and deepens the colour of the wood, and is going to mean the dark wood comes out almost black. It's now that you can first get an idea of what the finished handle is going to look like:



Here next to the previous one I did:



At this stage the handle is a little larger than it's going to be at the end, as the final shaping gets done on a series of hand sanding sheets up to about 600 grit. I give it another coat of oil after 240, again to give it more depth of colour and lustre at the end.

And then drill the tang slot through the ferrule, using files to make sure it's nice and neat. Unfortunately back in the day the hollow grinders of Solingen didn't envisage idiots like me buggering around trying to make wa handles for straight razors, and didn't design the tangs to make it particularly easy. A SR has a pretty wide tang in comparison to how small you need to make a handle, there isn't a lot of tolerance or margin for error here as you can see:



If the main part of the handle wasn't drilled already this would be almost impossible to do without grinding or modifying the tang. And I don't like to do that because a.) I may change my mind about the whole thing, and want to make some scaled handles for it in the future. And b.) As mentioned above the tang is quite chunky so it'd be quite a lot of material removal, and if the tang is hardened, as it probably is to some extent, that's going to be a lot of effort. And I am idle.

Et voila! (With apologies for the crappy indoor night time picture):

[cotedupy]

Before we get to the end result, first a note on the handle style...

When I first made a fixed handle for a razor, the shape was what's called a 'Stadium Oval' - basically an oval with straight sides / a rectangle with rounded ends, and as I was going I didn't exactly know how I was going to end up holding it or if a razor handle without a hinge would work. But I suspected it would because handles (whisper it quietly) don't actually make a huge amount of difference, at least not on a knife.

Although you hold a knife differently from a razor, it's not actually a million miles away; both are held largely on the neck, spine or blade. The handle is mostly there to provide balance, somewhere to rest the fingers that aren't doing anything, and look nice. The other reason that I suspected the hinge wouldn't matter that much is because your wrist and hand have 16 joints in them, whereas a traditional SR has one and it only works in two dimensions anyway. Your hand is almost infinitely more adaptable - the importance of a hinge on a SR vanishes to insignificance by comparison. Plus of course, Kamisori have fixed 'handles', so I knew it wasn't a completely stupid idea.

The very significant impact of a hinged handle however, is that it protects the blade during storage or travel, and that for me is the downside of a fixed design. I need to get round to making some kind of clever box, or possibly even a saya.

Anyhow, I ended up finding that I like to hold fixed handle razors like this, with either just my little finger, or little and ring fingers on the 'underside':



This grip also works well:



Those two pictures above are of the third one I did, and you can see that by that time I've switched from the stadium oval shape to a traditional, lightly tapered, Japanese octagonal knife handle style. And there's quite a simple reason why the cross-section profile of this kind of traditional 'Wa' handle is an octagon:



Again, one obviously doesn't hold a razor in quite the same way as a knife, but that artsy b&w picture of my hand does illustrate a simple point - the joints in your fingers are naturally inclined to form themselves in this kind of way, at these kinds of angles. However you're resting your fingers on a handle, an octagonal shape is going to be comfortable.

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I digress.

My handle gets finished with a few coats of Tung Oil, which I believe is what they term a 'drying' oil, meaning it dries hard, and importantly - waterproof. And then the razor gets fixed in. I tend to do this with two-part 5 min epoxy, which is very strong but has the downside of making it extraordinarily difficult to remove the handle if ever you want to take it off. You can also use glue pellets broken up, shoved down the tang slot, and then heat the tang to melt them when you insert it, or if you've got quite a soft wood, like the white Ho wood they often use on Japanese knives, you can simply heat the tang and burn it in without glue.

A couple of tips for using epoxy - if you warm it slightly it gets runnier and is easier to pour down narrow gaps, it also sets quicker so work fast. A smear of oil over the blade and handle beforehand will make any epoxy spills much easier to wipe off after, as epoxy won't bond to oiled or waxed surfaces.

And after all that we get here:







The handle is a smidge longer than the previous one because the dark winemaking oak staves are quite light, and I like try try to get the balance at the point where the handle meets the neck. I'm rather pleased with it all round tbh.

Lastly of course will be honing, and because I had to go back and re-sand it the bevel is no longer set properly, it will have got scuffed up when getting the little bits of pitting out. A blessing in disguise though, as yesterday I received something that I'm fairly certain is a Gwespyr Stone - a somewhat uncommon sandstone from northern Wales that is apparently a very good bevel-setter. And seeing as this razor is a marriage of superior Sheffiled steel and the meticulous attention to detail of our Teutonic friends, I'm going to keep the progression 'in house' and use only British and German stones.

L to R: Gwespyr, Idwal, Tam O'Shanter, Moughton, Charnley.
Below: Goldfisch Wetzstein, Escher.



I may not end up using all of these but I probably will, at least for a couple of strokes for fun. This is the coarsest of my Idwals, and I've not conditioned the surface very finely so hopefully will be alright after the Gwespyr, the others could probably all finish a razor to one level or another. Maybe the Tam and Goldfisch might be a little coarser, but I've not really tried them yet in earnest so will be fun to see!

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In regards to the handle design - I'd be keen to hear any thoughts, criticism, suggestions for tweaking or improvement &c. It certainly makes it far easier to hone, and I find just as easy in use, but I'm quite new to SRs so hadn't built up much muscle memory shaving with hinged razors. Perhaps an old hand (ho ho) might find it a bit weird? What do we think...

[32t]

If I had a junk blade of wind chime quality and I wanted to make a wood carving knife out of it I could easily see making a handle like this.

The octigon picture is interesting but it is way to small for your hand and you don't hold it that way for shaving anyway.

As you say the blade is now unprotected so also beond the time and effort that you have put into this you still have to make some sort of a stand or box.


I have seen many, many scales made from untraditional materials. some I like and some I don't but I can't see changing something from the origional design if not necessary or an improvement.

[cotedupy]

Ah, but the idea is more that it's a considerable improvement for honing, while not actually making a difference in use because your hand is an infinitely more complex and adaptable piece of evolution/design than a single pivot on a razor. The payoff really for me is storage and travel (ha!), but then as I said - kamisori get designed with fixed handles... so perhaps it's saya time!

(Also the picture of my hand was to illustrate a point - you don't actually hold a knife with a hammer grip either.)

[STF]

Just my humble opinion but, a traditional straight is held with the scales out straight like your knife handle straight for honing anyway so I don't really see how your design would be any easier to hone.

I reckon I would find yours much harder to shave with, I suppose it could maybe compared to a kamisori but I don't use those so I can't comment on that .

[cotedupy]

So, and I concede this may betray a complete misunderstanding of how others do it, but... when I hone one of my hinged razors I hold it like this:



Handle as you say is at 180, and my pinch is on the neck/tang - I can't hold the razor just by the handle because the pivot means it'd move around.

Like that - I think it would be easier if the sides of the neck weren't so (relatively) long and flat, and you also in most razors have assymetry between the top and bottom of the neck/tang which doesn't help.

The bigger factor for me though is the ability to hold the razor by the handle, further away from the stone, which allows more delicacy and precision when honing. I find it particularly helpful on smiley razors, or if needing to apply a some pressure for bevel-setting or repair - you can do it more accurately. Though it doesn't matter at all if you have a completely straight edge. The downside obviously of holding it further away is there's more potential to make a mistake and balls things up, but at least you have the option. I also find scaled handles quite long and bent and sometimes get in the way of your arm or wrist, though that's a minor factor and probably wouldn't happen at all if honing on a table (I do it in hand). Just my thoughts obviously - I personally do find fixed handles far better for honing.

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When I first made one I didn't know at all whether I'd like it for actually shaving, and was actually slightly surprised when I did. I wouldn't say I prefer them over a scaled, hinged handle, but for me they're no better or worse. Though as I said above - this very possibly has something to do with muscle memory not being built up as much.

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FWIW - having thought about it quite a lot over the last few months - my completely ideal razor handle would probably be hinged (can go past 180 like normal ones but also be folded for storage) , straighter, slightly rounder and less flat than traditional scales, but with a mechanism that allowed it to click or lock slightly in place at 180 for honing. Bit niche, and I wouldn't be able to do it myself, but that's what I think I'd like.


[Sorry about another sideways picture... I still don't know how to solve that!]

[STF]

If you prefer those knife handle razors and find them easier to hone, then more power to ya, A respected honemeister here wisely said, there's more than one way to sharp and if yours works for you that's great.

I doubt if anyone here would disagree or tell you your'e wrong.

We all hone by holding the tang, honing or stropping by holding the scales would be awkward for me at least and certainly wouldn't do the razor much good. Actually I can imagine it costing me a finger or two

[cotedupy]

Indeed... many options in the cat-skinning game!

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I actually make custom (knife) handles and sharpen stuff for a living so: a.) I probably spend far too much time, all day every day, thinking about nonsense like this. And b.) Shouldn't really be saying stuff like - that, apart from balance, handles don't really matter much and are largely aesthetic. But gotta call it how you see it

[DZEC]

I’m impressed by the fact that you aren’t using a fully-equipped knife makers shop to craft that handle - a hand held electric drill and a regular belt sander - WOW!! That encourages me to have a go at it.