web site and learning

Low Tech Frameback



Here is the page that shows how I built my frameback razors. I felt a little funny about posting this link after this evening. I am in St Paul MN this week attending a workshop for work. Randy Tuttle took me to visit Doc Molenaar’s and Mike Blue’s shops this evening. While at Mike’s shop he tested the hardness of the blades on two of my framebacks. One came out at 50 Rockwell C the other at 49Rockwell C this was quite a surprise to me. I have been shaving for about a month with the razor that tested at 50 with one touch up on a pasted hanging strop. I would rate the razor as one of my top shavers. The razor that came out at 49 is the latest razor that I made, I have not test shaved with it yet..

I have learned three (really more) things

(1) my heat treating in not what I thought it was
(2) that a razor can be at 50RC and still shave very well
(3) there are some real nice people in Minnesota

Thanks Randy and Mike

Charlie

Not sure if its just me, but there were no pictures whatsoever. Just the youtube video. It sounds like there should be pictures? Maybe not?

I can see the pictures, very cool. You're an innovative guy!

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Originally Posted by OLD_SCHOOL

Not sure if its just me, but there were no pictures whatsoever. Just the youtube video. It sounds like there should be pictures? Maybe not?

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The first line in the post is a link to everything.

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Originally Posted by Chimensch

The first line in the post is a link to everything.

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That's right, and there's no pictures showing up at my end.

So I gather I still got some serious pc issues. Coz Webcast didn't work the other day either.

Fantastic Charlie !

Really generous of you to take the time to share what you've learnt...

You've come up with some innovative solutions there too mate... great stuff !!

Greg Frazer

Thanks, Charlie - this really does inspire me to hopefully make a razor from scratch one day! Way to go! What would you do differently with regards to heat treating next time?

Thanks again,
Mark

That's great stuff, thanks for sharing your knowledge. It just goes to show, beautiful things can be made with simple tools.

Mike performed the same eye-opening hardness testing for me. I hit 54 HRC, but I was using a steel that I had a pretty good heat-treating recipe for. Another razor from that batch turned out to be a great shaver, so I concur with your conclusion that a blade doesn't have to be ultra hard to work well.

Heat-treating is about knowledge first, with control a close second. You need to know what you have to do, then you need the tools to help you to stick as close to the recipe as possible.

The first piece of knowledge you need is what results you're getting with your current process. :)

Josh

Beautiful razor, by the way. :)

Josh

Charlie (Spazola) does some really nice work! I know that both Mike Blue and I were quite taken with his design, workmanship, and ingenuity.

The results of the hardness tests were surprising because they said that a shaving edge can be attained at other than 58-65 HRC.
Mike also suggested an approach that will probably be useful for the both of us since we do not have a Rockwell testing machine.

More posts on Charlies visit to come.

Charlie, your link is amazing and absolutely inspirational. I never imagined making my own razor, and probably still won't find the time to do it, but I will definitely repeatedly look at your website for inspiration just to remind myself of the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I could do it!

Thank you!

I forgot to say that your razor is simply gorgeous. The curves are beautiful!:bow

great post, very inspiring! :tu

That was very cool, nice frame back too. Funnily enough when I clicked the videos, they all said that the video was no longer available, yet they still played, they were just rather dark.

I decided to try a different browser too see what happens. Seems my earlier problem lies with FF3.

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Originally Posted by Milton Man

What would you do differently with regards to heat treating next time?

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After talking to Mike B, I think that I will start tempering at a lower temperature, and let the blade soak for a little bit longer at critical temperature. I will also pay closer attention to the time getting from the forge to the quench.

I felt that the file did not bite into the metal last time, so I think that the problem is the tempering.

I am still in the process of trying to figure this out and perform the task with the tools that I have.

Charlie
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OLD_SCHOOL

I am not sure why the pages are not displaying right, I am not very tech savvy. I they seem to display right in Opera and Firefox.

If any computer literate people have any ideas about the page it will not hurt my feelings tell me what is wrong.

Thanks

Charlie

:y

Thanks!

C utz

fantastic job, and thank you for showing us you process. save the monkeys?:thinking:

Thanks for the reply - I was wondering...although I have a question - in Josh Earl's "My Heat Treating Processt" thread, he says he tempers his blades at 400F-425F...which is the temperature you used? Is it because the steel is different that you need to use a lower temper temperature?

Sorry for all the questions - this is really fascinating!

Mark

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Originally Posted by Milton Man

Thanks for the reply - I was wondering...although I have a question - in Josh Earl's "My Heat Treating Processt" thread, he says he tempers his blades at 400F-425F...which is the temperature you used? Is it because the steel is different that you need to use a lower temper temperature?

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The first variable is that the blade was "saw steel". Without knowing exactly what the steel is, there are possibilities injected into the whole process. This doesn't mean it's a bad steel, just unknown. I think it was a great place to start. Run the heat treatment, then test. If it's not where you want it to end up, re-treat and test again. Maybe several pieces each with a slightly different tempering temperature until the hardness is consistently where it's wanted.

In this case, the first possibility was that the tempering temperature was too high and reduced the hardness. So, we go to a lower temperature next time, maybe make five more blades, harden them all the same and temper one at 300 F, and each subsequent blade 25 F higher.

If the pattern starts to show that the top limit of hardness is say 54 with a tempering temperature of 300F, then perhaps it's time to look at the austenitizing temperature, perhaps, letting the steel soak a little longer over several blades, then back to the tempering routines until another highest hardness number develops.

If that's not good enough, then maybe the quench will have to be evaluated and a faster quenchant considered. Oil is a very safe choice up front and will produce good hardness in many unknown steels. But, maybe a faster oil or even water will have to be evaluated.

Last, this obviously takes time and effort and multiple blades to "write the data" for this unknown. Sometimes that can be a lot of fun, or seen as a waste of time and the next steel will be a known item and require less of this experimentation. Although, I have to admit, that for each new batch of steel from the mill, even though I have spectrographs of the analysis of the alloy, I still run a similar heat treatment regimen to make sure that the alloy will perform as it should.

It's a good example of what some of us have to go through. Just in case anyone thought that this was easy...:D

...and easy it is not! This requires a lot of knowledge, and technique - but with mentors like yourself, Mike, and Josh, it makes something like Charlie is attempting feasible - and makes the rest of us VERY interested in giving it a go ourselves!

Thanks again for the great explanation, Mike!:tu

Mark

To elaborate a bit on something Mike mentioned... It is possible to get a blade that seems fully hard only to have the hardness drop off at a lower tempering temperature than you'd expect. If you feel like the steel is getting really hard in the quench--in other words, the file isn't biting in--but then it ends up being fairly soft, then there may be something going on with the austenizing process. Too hot, not hot enough, not enough soak time for the particular steel alloy...

Kevin Cashen talks about this a lot with O1, which needs a long soak. He hears from guys who only temper their O1 at 350 F or so, and it's not brittle. There's something wrong there.

I tend to look at 400 F as a baseline temperature for tempering, at least for the steels I use. If the blade seems too hard after 400, I'll go to 425. If a steel seems too soft after a 400 F temper I would get mighty suspicious.

If I had to guess, I'd say that your saw blade steel has a high alloy content and needs more soak time. It would be great if you could hold it at temperature for five to 10 minutes.

Without some way to control the temperature, it seems like it would be pretty hard to nail down a good heat treatment for a mystery steel. In the future, you might want to consider getting some good 1080 or 1095. A piece big enough for a blade would cost less than $1, and you would know what you were dealing with.

I do understand the romance of shaving with a piece of old sawblade, though... :)

Josh

I have thought of using known steel, but have not done it yet. I would like to make the saw steel work better. It is a challenge and I have that donkey stubbornness. I am not super worried about the hardness. The first razor that I made that came out at 50RC is a great shaver. I was really shocked when I found out that it was that soft. It went against my preconceived notions of what would work.

I am more of a by the seat of my pants, TLAR engineering (that looks about right) type of person, but I will make some samples and do some empirical testing to see if can improve.

Charlie
Stubborn in Texas