Thread: Crooked Blade Help Please

Warped tangs aren't unusual. It's very easy for the tang to warp during the heat treating process and without solid quality control at the factory, they won't be culled or corrected.

And the good news is that they can be corrected most of the time with a vise or heavy duty press using two brass rods to support either side as contact points and one brass rod on the high side as a fulcrum to bend the blade straight again. This will usually leave the blade undamaged if done carefully because it's a slow pressure. Trying to hammer it straight can work sometimes and can break the blade a lot of times.

I have seen many "Apprentice" blades...

tangs are alighned one way and blade another.. kind of like this:



They make for very challenging pin jobs.

Originally Posted by Caleb

Funnily enough one of my Bengall razors is like that to.
I wonder how rare/common it is?

Very common. I think ALL the pre-1900 or so razors I've worked with (certainly all Sheffield...seems to be some variability in the SOlingen) have been this way.

They need the tang to taper, in it is MUCH easier to do without messing up to grind or forge ONE side. A lot of old horn scales are not perfectly symmetrical to make up for this... just drop an extra bearing (thrust washer) on the ground side and you'll be golden.

but now the question is how do you hone something like that is seems that i can't get a straight edge on it and it will be honing in opposite spots on the other side of the blade! i may just send it out, but i also want to learn what to do! thanks for posting everyone this site is great and full of wonderful people and wonderful ideas!

Happy Samhain (Halloween)
Wulfgar

Here is a thread you might want to browse through ....

There is a ton of info on warped, bent, mis-ground tangs in there

It is a ton of reading but there is a wealth of info in it...

http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...w-quality.html


Then make sure you visit the Wrokshop section of the Wiki for Spazolas scales fix because that works way too easy...

awesome thanks SIX!

Thank you everyone, all that information was very helpful. I should have done a search for warped or crooked blades first but when I realized the tang was warped I panicked a bit and jumped right to posting.

The idea to straighten with a vise and some brass pins would not work in my current situation because the spine was not curved, it was actually a bad grind. Yet I will remember that as I'm sure I'll run into that in the future.

my issue was a bad grind or twist in the tang (not exactly sure which) causing only the edge to lean to one side. So after finding out that it was a common situation (thanks to you guys) and stopping to think about it a bit, I came up with a solution.

I took a brass spacer and filed it down to a wedge shape to compensate for the tang. Then I glued the washer to the tang so the correction to the surface angle would be correct if the blade is open or closed.

I have not had a chance to try it yet to make sure it works cause my scales are still drying (I'm still working on finishing the wood). However, I did the same test pressing down on the pivot hole while the blade was on a flat surface and my fix appears to have reduced the bad angle by half.

Here's a crappy picture illustrating what I did (in case I did not describe it well enough)...

Originally Posted by PapaBull

Trying to hammer it straight can work sometimes and can break the blade a lot of times.

This soo true, 2 weeks ago I got away with a light tap and, felt the blade needed just that little bit more, result: Joseph smith and sons wedge all original near perfect finish now snapped clean in half !!

Good luck with your bent blade Sir, and some very good advice from the guys IMHO.
Also to straighten slightly warped scales or get around problems with the blade sitting off centre, I fill a coffee cup with boiling water from the kettle, place the offending end of the razor in it whilst applying a slight twist as needed, you will feel it go, lift it out and just hold it under tension for a few seconds until you feel it relax, Bingo!
Its worth a go, esp if you dont need to descale or re-pin.
Hope this helps and good luck with your endeavours once again
Ralfy