Thread: How do you make your jimps?

Originally Posted by Caledonian

Personally I find bone shaves better than horn, and both are well ahead of plastic, but I hesitate to draw conclusions. The boards are full of people finding a difference between razor and razor, and ascribing it to whatever reason they find most satisfying. But I will continue using the sharp side.

I'm confused. What do bone, horn, and plastic have to do with jimps?
I must confess that I like jimps. I am comfortable with and without them but the peace of mine with them is nice. At least for me and with my kids running around.

Back to the question. After looking at few dozens of razors it looks to me like they were either cut like old style hand made files or roled with toothy roller.

Originally Posted by adrspach

Are you sure that we talk about same thing?

We see the term used of two distinct features. One is filework on the back of the blade, which is surely the most purposeless. The other is serration on the tang, which I still think is of little utility, and is a place rust is very likely to begin.

I don't believe there is any reliable way to accomplish the latter on a hardened blade. But before hardening, it is easily done with a firearms checkering file for metal (not to be confused with wood checkering tools) from a firm like World's Largest Supplier of Gun Parts, Gunsmith Tools & Shooting Accessories - Brownells . (trying to do it freehand with a triangular file is asking for trouble.) But that is only on a flat or convex portion of the tang. I am sure professional razor-makers had similar tools with a convex surface, for concave curves. You could make one with the checkering file, from a softened and rehardened half-round file. But the checkering file is an expensive item to risk bluntening.

Rolled, I don't believe. It is possible that they were sometimes swaged into the red-hot tang with a sort of specially cut pincer, possibly pounded with a hammer for the momentary action which wouldn't cool the piece you want hot, and heat the tool you don't want to overheat. But I don't think such a tool, probably expensive, would have lasted before HSS and carbide, and I am sure they were mostly cut with a multiline file.

I like jimps. Grip and control, less slipping there is a positive reason to have them for many people.

There must be a bunch of ways to add them to a razor, I can think of 9 right off the top of my head. It can be done on a soft blank and it can be done on a hardened blank. It will depend on the maker or owner and when he wants to add them. It can be a mod to a razor that did not have them.

Soft blank with or without fixturing;
hammer and chisel
file (of many types)
grinding wheel (bench grinder or dremel tool)
hot forge with a chisel type of tool
abrasive cutoff wheel (bench grinder or dremel tool)
carbide burr (dremel tool)
end mill (Bridgeport type mill)
hacksaw
bandsaw

Hardened blade many of the above will work.

Imagination and resourcefulness are your only limitation.

Jeff

Originally Posted by Caledonian

If that. I think they could only be marginal and ingenious function, at the most. Why aren't they all doing it?

It is very common to have them on solingen hollow ground blade, which usually have a rather thin tang.
With jimps, the slender tang is less likely to move in your grip.