Thread: Modding / Restoration WIP

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...