Thread: 7/8 Hollow grinding

Originally Posted by jfk742

No jig, all free hand. I haven’t fooled too much with jigs for grinding. One side came out awesome, the other not so much. It’ll do what I made it for so there’s that. Can’t wait to see that finished up.

Yeah my weak side grinds were never as good so what I ended up doing is just flipping the blade on my strong side so that it is edge down. Works especially well on a full hollow because you're already inside your primary grind so don't need to observe the edge thickness. I started out freehand but the jig is just more consistent imo.

I look forward to the progress pictures. It’s looking good.

Took the hollow all the way back to make a completely shoulderless grind. Been working on a batch of 5 7/8 razors, 4 wedges and this one hollow grind. Decided to freehand it and it came out good. Used some cork belts up to 800 grit to blend the belly into the edge grind but still left it quite distinct visually. The wedges were ground up to an A5 Trizact belt. As an aside if you're into grinding and have never tried the Trizact belts you really must, impeccable finishes, it's all I use apart from a 40 grit Blaze to do all my rough work and my cork belts.

After 40 Grit Ceramic.


Finished at 800 grit cork.





Other razors I'm working on.


All these are going into horn scales with faux ivory wedges.

Faux Ivory?
Bone can be made with and found at a pet store. I think it would match the horn better.

Originally Posted by Gasman

Faux Ivory?
Bone can be made with and found at a pet store. I think it would match the horn better.

I use a museum grade artificial ivory from Masecraft called col.849 but I have some of the Dave Warther Resin Ivory on the way so I'll compare the two. Both are extremely visually accurate, the Warther stuff has a black-light additive to check it is in fact artificial otherwise it's accurate enough to fool experts on inspection. Good enough for a small wedge. I'd like to use bone for scales at some point but just haven't got round to it.

Very nice mate
This is 8/8” with a 36” primary then a 2” hollow

I would live to see some of that masecraft faux ivory if you have a picture of a razor in a set of scales.

I’ll have to try some cork belts. How do they compare to scotch bright? The razors are looking good!

Originally Posted by thp001

I use a museum grade artificial ivory from Masecraft called col.849 but I have some of the Dave Warther Resin Ivory on the way so I'll compare the two. Both are extremely visually accurate, the Warther stuff has a black-light additive to check it is in fact artificial otherwise it's accurate enough to fool experts on inspection. Good enough for a small wedge. I'd like to use bone for scales at some point but just haven't got round to it.

I have used this in the 1/8” sheet looks great but is flexible and gets worse when thinned out more when shaping, have a piece of the block version but played with it yet

Originally Posted by Substance

I have used this in the 1/8” sheet looks great but is flexible and gets worse when thinned out more when shaping, have a piece of the block version but played with it yet

Yeah you need to leave it a bit thicker otherwise it's too flexible, I've only used it on two razors so far but have used it on quite a few knives since you have the tang as backing. The Warther ivory is a cast resin so should be much stiffer and have the ability to go plenty thin, if so I'll make the switch over. Both are plenty good for wedges. I've been working in horn a lot recently, trying to do things the old ways just using files, scrapers, a coping saw for all the shaping with a bit of crocus cloth and polish for the finishing. I prefer natural materials but obviously with ivory you have to use synthetic, I mean, there's mammoth ivory but it's quite expensive. Once I get the Warther ivory I'll probably do a review/comparison post with the Masecraft stuff.