Thread: Asian razor in Ebony

This is a razor that was found in my wife's late grandmother's house. I did the scales and wedge in ebony, and finished with gorilla super glue.

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Here is a picture showing why I may end up not using this blade:

Unfortunately, it appears that the blade is warped to the side. This actually is not too surprising based on the rest of the razor. First, this razor had never been honed, at least not without tape on the spine which is unlikely since it was from an old barber. This is important because the blade is about 5/8" at the heel, but 11/16" at the toe. This leads me to believe it was produced very cheaply, and/or in mass quantities. Leads me to believe it may be a Japanese razor from WWII?

Here is a closeup of the tang:

Can anybody make out what language these characters are from, or a possible maker?

razors with that profile are not uncommon, TI makes slants too, so the profile may not be telling of quality.
Japanese made razors are usually very good so if this is indeed Japanese made you might have a great blade in your hands.

The angle on the end seems to be from a poor grind not a warped blade.

tim

I too would not be concerned about the proportions of the blade to indicate the steel quality. It'd be interesting to send of for honing. I think best to send off, due to someone, such as out of the SRP classifieds, due to they see and hone far more razors than many others. While honing, hands on, they can provide likely the best opinion of steel quality.

I too would be interested in the translation. Is that a biplane in the circle? Looking via phone so detail hard for my view.

The scales and clean up look very nice

It's hard to make out details on most of those characters, but they look suspiciously like the "Asian Gibberish" that European makers liked to put on razors for a while.

The bottom two are definitely dodgy...