Thread: Centering Friodur

I hope this thread will eventually help everyone here, because I am having a hell of time getting a 8/8 Friodur to center. I have another one that is even worse. I have looked at the centering Wiki article and I just wanted to get a few more tips before having to unpin this one again. I made an exaggerated (slightly) image to show what is going on.




I already tried to pin it with 2 washers on the left side and one on the right. It centered on my test fit, but as I tightened the pivot it drifted to the right again.

Any help would be appreciate by myself and all that have rescaled Friodurs.

Thanks!

I haven't got a wealth of experience, but how I have been doing it is to use a 3rd pin and sanding where needed to forcefully align it.

How I would approach it looking at your picture is to sand off some of the material around the single washer pin, and then add a third pin with its spacer being the same length as that of the tang width.

How I can best explain it, is I use the metal between the pin hole and the blade to align it in the scales (due to the 3rd pin holding the scales firmly).

This might not work if your scales have a lot of give in them, the other options I would see are to epoxy fill the pin hole and re-drill it to counter the Bias.

I would not take this answer as concrete and probably wait for some big hitters to give you there expertise, but this is how I have been working it out.

Thanks for the tip. However, the tang/shang already does not touch the scales at all when closed.

Hi,
The pic looks like the blade would be warped and not the scales. I do not believe things are that bad. You should check it first. It is rather the scales that are either warped or then there must be loose in the pin hole.
There might be other reasons as well but i would check these first.

When I had my fits with the Fridour I scaled, I found out that the inside of the scales push the blade on one side making it hit the opposite scale.
I filed the inside and that partially alleviated the problem. I had to add a washer I filed at an angle to make up for the bent in the tang( profile of washer looked like this /] ).
You can also avoid the whole shank hitting the scales just by making the from of the scales higher this stopping the blade higher, look up Glen's restorations he does that trick sometimes.

Finally last thing you could try , or in addition to the above, add a middle pin, that way you can control the distance between the scales right at the beginning of the shank.
Another thing that comes in mind is fill the pin hole with epoxy or JB weld and drill the hole at a slight angle to counter the bend in the tang, I never tryed this and it has to be pretty precise to work, but might be worth to try.

Hope this helps.

Good suggestions, and I don't have much to add other than sympathy. I was surprised how many vintage razors have moderate to severe warping, causing the blade to sit off center if you use stiff scale materials. I think part of the reason that plastic and horn scales were popular was that they helped disguise the warpage problems. It's one of the reasons I decided to just start making my own blades instead of trying to fix problems with old ones...

Good luck,
Josh

Sympathy accepted. Like I said earlier. I have the shank clearance taken care of, but I think I might need to try the wedged washer to fix this.

Are you using a drillpress or just a drill? If you drift the drill just a bit that would make the blade move that much more. I think what might be happening is when you drilled the hole did you set it down, the press the other side down to drill if so by flexing one side and not the other could couse the knife to flex the opposite way. Try drilling one side, allign the scale hole with the tang hole allign the blade at the other end and drill the other scale.

through some pix up to get a better idea

Scales are not the problem. It was drilled on a drill press when the scales were still taped together. Its perfectly straight. The blade is the problem as many rescalers who have rescaled Friodurs can attest to.

Sometimes forcing the scales over can help. If you elongate the hole on one side on one scale, and do the same but on the opposite side on the other scale, the washer will hide the elongation and you can force the pin down on one scale only, which forces the other scale up past the pivot. You have to re-pin quite firmly though - its best if the pin swells a bit in the hole, or it can drift back again.

Regards,
Neil