Thread: How to rescale a twisted/warped blade?

HI all,

I've got an old Franz & Sibbald nice old 13/16ths hollow ground I've been staring out for several months. Here's my problem:

This blade is warped, to the point of not closing in ANYTHING correctly.

I've tried it in several sets of scales, but it always hits the left side (direction of the warp).

Any ideas how to deal with this? Is it just a matter of putting it in something and always being extra careful when you close it?

Thoughts???

Mike

hehehe at the top of this forum Mike is the master sticky in red in there are several ways of fixing the problem from the internal washers to tweaking the scales to straightening the razor in a vice... SLOWLY


g

I dunno if I'd recommend the vice, unless you want to join the broken razor club.

If you're making custom scales for it, there are a few things you can do to accommodate the blade...you could make one scale longer than the other by drilling the pivot hole slightly farther away from the wedge hole. This will force the scales to go to one way or the other in relation to the pivot.

You can also use scale thickness to your advantage... thin out one scale so that it is .01" thinner than the other -- assuming you have a nice tapered wedge, this will cause one scale to be "stronger" than the other, and be straighter, and the weaker scale will bend a little more, also causing the scales to go one way or the other.

As glen mentioned, there are washer tricks, drilling out wedge and pivot holes slightly larger than necessary, and holding the razor one way or the other during pinning..

Finally, if nothing else works you always have the possibility of warping the scales themselves to match. plastic, celluloid, horn, can all be rigged up with some small clamps and scrap wood or something to get the scales where they need to be....and then heated up with a hair dryer thoroughly, and then thrown in the fridge or freezer to set for a bit...

I have one razor with a bent tang and I just "deal with it" as you mentioned. It doesn't really bother me too much!

I think the warped/twisted/bend tang is everyone's worse nightmare when it comes to the final assembly of one's hard work on some nice scales and what not. The washer trick is the esiest but honestly I think it looks weird and many times I'll get a "why are there 2 different sized washers at the pivot" from several people.
The easiest I have found is to slightly sand away the inside of the scales depending the warp, sometimes combined with one finer or thicker washer on the side of the warp. I say "slightly" because if you start sanding away to much one scale end ups being shorter and thinner which at the end also looks weird if you've gone ballistic with your sandpaper. I find that a re-grind of the tang works great at times, and mainly on the side that doesn't have any engraving since you don't have to worry about fading or losing the engraving. Sometimes a bit of everything does the trick. For me it's striking the right balance so it's not to obvious you tried to make the razor center and close nicely. In the end if it means it's not perfectly closing, so be it. It doesn't affect the shave and it looks better as bulking up the scales with God knows how many extra washers and un-balanced sanded scales towards the tail.

I too have re-ground a tang as Max suggests...

One thing I do to gauge where I will be at during final pinning, is I will take the unrestored blade as soon as I get it out of the scales, and lay it down on a flat surface. I then press the tang onto the surface right at the pivot point with my finger, and take note of how far the point (toe) of the blade is off the surface. I flip the razor over, and do the same thing. A perfectly ground razor with a tang that is symmetrically ground will have approximately equivalent distances from the surface to point on both sides. With this quick test I will immediately know which way the blade will likely sit in the scales, and can make the scales with that in mind.

I'm way new to all this I guess, but for my second razor I had this problem. I used a few different machinist files to remove enough material on the non-stamped side of the tang for the razor to close well inside the scales. It still doesn't center exactly, but it's not hitting the scales anymore, and is barely noticeable. On word of caution: If you go this route, be careful to keep your file pressure balanced. I tend to twist right when I push down. This created one big ugly hashmark that can never be removed. I tried this on another razor as well, but the file just slid along the metal without gripping. I'm assuming this is due to a difference in steel hardness. But if you don't have a grinder, it's worth a shot.

I resolved it by using a single washer on the opposite side and used a larger set of rough cut acrylic scales with a really large spacer wedge. It wasn't so large that the razor could fall through, but large enough that with the single washer, it was able to close without total worry.

All razors should be guided in properly and with care anyway, so as long as it is close, I'm happy!!

Thanks for all the input guys!

M

Originally Posted by Undream

You can also use scale thickness to your advantage... thin out one scale so that it is .01" thinner than the other -- assuming you have a nice tapered wedge, this will cause one scale to be "stronger" than the other, and be straighter, and the weaker scale will bend a little more, also causing the scales to go one way or the other.

Let's say the blade is warped towards the back side. Which scale needs to be thinner?? Front or back?