I am making Josh's Christmas present. No... not for free, so none of y'all need to ask me to make one for you, too.

His pretty slick family is paying me to do it. He did get to set some parameters. Without going into a bunch of detail, the most memorable of requests was that the razor winds up being 12/8 and a quarter thick.

No, I didn't stutter. I said 12/8. Personally, I think it's too big when you couple it with 1/4 inch thick ATS-34 stainless. My calculations estimate a mere 8 passes would be all that is required to shave Richard Kiel's face. The cutting surface will be about 3 1/4 inches long.

Here is the rest of the story. Josh has promised me that he will not look at this thread because I will be posting pics as the razor develops. And, it's certainly not right for someone to peek at their Christmas present... no?

That will provide all of you an opportunity to kinda make statements on other threads similar to, "Man, Josh. You should see how that razor you are getting for Christmas is coming along." Without giving secrets away, like "those certainly look like diamonds in the tang, Josh". Don't be specific. Just say it looks cool 'n stuff.

Like I said, all he knows is that it will be a quarter thick and a 12/8 razor. He also knows it has a barber's notch and kinda knows what the outline looks like... that's it. So, don't spoil it.

Maybe Joe could say something like. "Hey Josh, I told Bill I would monitor who is viewing that thread cause he said he wouldn't mail it on time if you peeked." I'll be interested to see who can come up with the most tantalizing morsels of bait to throw at him. This could be fun...

The pic shows three razors. Gee... which one is Josh's? Duh...
The razor on the top is a 5/8 and the one on the bottom is a 6/8. That will give you an idea how massive it is.

The hole in the blade is for something down the road that deals with my signature, so yes, I drilled it on purpose. The hole in the tang is 1/16 inch in diameter. Next, I will start on some filework. Then three holes in the long tang for either diamonds or emeralds or something. One more diamond will go in the very tip of the blade. That flat spot on the front of the blade in line with where the hone would rest. I may have you guys help me choose the gemstones... we'll see.

Pierced ear? Ha. We might have another kind of horror story to listen to with this puppy. Something like how it was dropped and it cut his travel case in half.

This is the rough stage, so don't be concerned with sanding or grinding marks for now. I know they are there and it's ok for now.

Oh. And I'm going to make it a poll. We'll see how many guys think Josh will wind up peeking before he is supposed to.