Thread: My sweeney

Well this is no restoration, but I figured if ben325e could make an old hickory shave then i'll give my sweeney a go. Trere are 2 types of sweeneys on ebay. I got the one made of 1045 surgical stainless.
First off I had to make a bevel of course. I did this by taping the spine and taking it to my drill powered belt sander.This knocked the existing bevel off pretty quick.Then i put it to work on a dunlap combo hone med/fine. I'm not sure about the grits med is equiv. to a fine bench grind the fine side is a med grit to me.this took awhile with multiple retapes. Whent to another dunlap combo next these wee much finer grits. Many tapes later then onto the barber hone. Only needed one tape here since it about glass in grit. If you look at the pics you'll see that I only honed about half the razor. This was done for two reasons. 1.the cutting edge is about 5 inches long and who needs that much razor. 2. the grind wasen't done full lenght so I couldn't have gotten it honed thin enuf anyway.will it shave worth a crap? I don't know but I'll find out.

Looks nice !

Hopefully others will correct me if I'm wrong, but anytime you see 10XX this is going to represent a carbon steel. 1045 means that it contains .45 percent carbon. This makes it a mild carbon steel, which when heat treated attains a maximum of about 55 on the Rockwell C scale. if the blade was tempered at all, then you can expect that number to be lower. This means that the edge will be somewhat softer than you may be used to, and you might have a hard time getting it to take an edge. Chasing a burr back and forth could be a problem.

I'm not saying it can't be done; just trying to let you know what you're up against!!

Good luck and can't wait to see the vid!


P.S. - this question is for everyone - what the heck does "surgical" stainless mean? Surgical tools are made from all sorts of steels. It seems that manufacturers/advertisers just try to drop the surgical term to invoke awe or mystery or whatever about an item. Just like surgical arkansas stones..... pfft... whatever. If a surgeon comes at me with anything that's ever seen an arkansas novaculite, I'm getting off the table and into my car and finding a doctor worth a dang.

Hey Ben,

The term "surgical" stainless doesn't mean anything, nor does the term "aircraft grade aluminum" (all sorts of aluminums are used in aircraft, depending on what part is supposed to be made from the aluminum). Ditto for "Corinthian Leather." These are marketing hype terms with no defined meaning (so says my buddy Sam, a mechanical engineer).

Well iv'e done it I shaved with the sweeney. The shave went pretty well considering the size of the monster. My wtg pass went smooth as usual took the hair off easily. The atg pass may need a little practice to become smooth.The edge of the razor held up allright so my technique needs a little more practice with the big fella. no irritation on the cheeks or jawline just the neck area. That's how i came to the conclusion about tech and not hardware. In response to ben I'm not sure about hardness because i cant follow the hardness conversion charts on line. 1045 is between 163-170 brinell and I've not the knoledge to convert this. If the hardness is low then it has not been tempered. Because getting the bevel down was a ......
As far as the surgical goes I'm unsure what that means. All I know is that my japanese tanto made of surgical stainless steel will chew the **** out of my plain stainless tanto.I have no way to post a video of this due to lack of equipmnt so you'll just have to imagine 2 pounds and 5 inches of steel gliding across your face.

Great job Spanx! I'm glad to see that the razor works; this officially makes your sweeney todd razor MUCH more bad a$$ than all other sweeney todd's out there!


Well done.



BTW, that brinell hardness number must be with no heat treat whatsoever. Brinell 230 is about 19 on the rockwell C scale, which is softer than a cafeteria fork.

Well I don't know what all the numbers stand for but let assure you that honing it was really forkin hard.

Originally Posted by Ben325e

*snip*


P.S. - this question is for everyone - what the heck does "surgical" stainless mean? Surgical tools are made from all sorts of steels. It seems that manufacturers/advertisers just try to drop the surgical term to invoke awe or mystery or whatever about an item. Just like surgical arkansas stones..... pfft... whatever. If a surgeon comes at me with anything that's ever seen an arkansas novaculite, I'm getting off the table and into my car and finding a doctor worth a dang.

I had a conversation once with a surgeon who used hand-made flint edges for certain situations. Apparently steel, no matter how sharp, can/will tear your tissues. The flint edges will apparently separate your tissue (on a molecular level, perhaps? It was a while ago). The cuts heal faster and with less scarring.

Best tool for the job, I guess.
J.

Originally Posted by spanx

As far as the surgical goes I'm unsure what that means.

There is no one steel that is designated as "surgical stainless". It just needs to be stainless so they can put it in an autoclave to sterilize it. My guess is that they use whatever stainless steel the maker of surgical blades can get at a good price when he's buying.

1045 is an unalloyed carbon steel, not a stainless! it's the same steel that pretty much all vintage razors use.