Thread: Herder blank

You guys made my day. Now I have two steps of wood one it's ebony and the other is American holly what would you guys recommend? Can't believe this is going to be my cheapest razor!

My recommendation is to start thoroughly surfing the Custom Builts and Restorations gallery. I'm not sure that anybody will tell you how you should do your scales, and if they do, you're probably going to get a different opinion from each person. When it comes to scale building, alot of the design is goverened by your own sense of aesthetics. So, surf around, look at a BUNCH of pictures of restored blades. Read about what the folks did, how they did it, and the mistakes they made, and then make your own choice about the scale design. If you want, come back with either a drawing or the rough-cut scales and folks will be more than happy to give input; but with just a blade, get some ideas in your head and let the creative juices flow! In my opinion, there's no one way to scale a blade.

I do recommend a couple of resources (aside from the site wiki):

Discussion about scale thickness: http://straightrazorpalace.com/custo...thickness.html

Vintage Scale shapes: http://straightrazorpalace.com/custo...pdf-today.html

And since you're looking at using wood

Great way to finish/stabilize wood scales: http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...ints-tips.html

Lastly, from the wiki, here's a great video series of restoring/rescaling a blade, start to finish.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/srpwi...h_Video_Series

Cheers!
-- Jim

Have a look here.

Someone bought these (a grab-bag of several blades) and some were heat treated, some not and still soft. In fact the listing says that the actual treatment of the individual blades may vary due to the abrupt end of the factory during the war.

As far as I know, only the actual thickness of the blade and the appearance of the stabilisers will tell you whether they have been hardened - stamping marks and pivot holes is (usually - some holes are drilled afterwards, or so I have been told) done prior to final heat treatment. It is hard to tell the thickness of the blade in a photo without an end-on image.

Regards,
Neil

Actually, the sound they make is another tell.

If you hang a blank on a thread (or keep the end of the tang between your fingers very lightly) and tap it with a ball peen hammer in the sweet spot (the place where it would more or less balance ), listen to the sound it makes. A hardened blank has a certain crystalline structure and will produce a relatively clean high pitch chime. A soft blank of the same dimensions will have a different internal structure, and will produce a chime that is not clean, and significantly lower.