How hard would it be to smith pic related out of some spring steel? I'd imagine the shape would be easy, and you'd punch a hole for the bolt that'll hold it inside the wooden sheath. But how would you get a edge good enough to shave?
How hard would it be to smith pic related out of some spring steel? I'd imagine the shape would be easy, and you'd punch a hole for the bolt that'll hold it inside the wooden sheath. But how would you get a edge good enough to shave?
How hard is it to hammer out a bar of metal? Not.
A razor is almost entirely grinding and tempering, and all you can do is frick it up until you get better.
>A razor is almost entirely grinding and tempering
This is true.
And it's the tempering which is really the definition of quality.
Sounds pretty basic, show us your results.
>But how would you get a edge good enough to shave?
Sharpen and strop TF out of it
Hollow grinds are a pain in the ass to do, then you need a dozen different stones and strops do make is useful. Looks simple, but it's very hard to do correctly
How are you going to get spring steel in the summer
Spring is just around the corner in the Southern hemisphere.
(noʎ) ɐ ǝʌɐɥ
You buy old winter steel and age it for a few months
Duh
A hollow grind like that is very hard to do even with dedicated double wheel grinders. They get forged in dies to near net shape industrially, then heat treated then ground (thus the wet grinding).
If you look at some razor makers on YT you'll notice that many stick to more V form blades rather than the full hollow grind. On a hollow grind like that the blade thickness is around 0.10mm 1mm back from the edge, around 0.20mm halfway to the spine. There's zero room for error.
A V blade can shave just as well, but they will be more work to maintain.
And you don't need a dozen special stones to sharpen them. A 4000/8000 double sided and a strop will do fine, if you want to get fancy you can get a 12,000 but 25 years ago 8k was pretty much as high as you could buy, and folks been using straight razors way longer than that. The Belgian coticule set the bar for razor hones for many decades and they range between 4k-8k.
I see. So i should just go for a V form then? I don't mind maintaining being a bit worse, i don't shave every day.
If I was making a razor it's what I would do. You can still make it hollow ground, but getting like the really thin old ones would be next to impossible without putting in a lot of time cobbling up a grinding setup and getting a lot of experience.
I disagree. I tend to accidentaly put hollows on most things i sharpen. With a powered grinder that is. I have a home made jig that slides perpindicular back and forth and that puts a hollow in it. I do mower blades mostly,
>On a hollow grind like that the blade thickness is around 0.10mm 1mm back from the edge, around 0.20mm halfway to the spine. There's zero room for error.
myeh.
you forgot the part where it is fricking difficult and takes years of practice to get a good result from low grits.
if you are cheap, stick to lapping film
Short clip of a "real" grinder. You can see the wheels are quite small compared to some of the double belt grinder setups some people use. You can also tell the guy grinding is probably in his 70s and been doing this a loooong time.
Why not just make a hollow grind that isn't super thin?
entirely defeats the purpose. half hollow is not much different than wedge
No, even a slight hollow on the flat side of single bevel knives makes a big difference in maintaining a sharp edge
The purpose of the primary hollow is to have an incredible thin cutting edge.
If you cant dent that steel with your nail, its to thick
You can have a thin edge geometry without a hollow grind.
Sketch of a Kropp blade with the above measurements. 0.20 thick in the middle. Spine is 5mm, spinde to edge 19mm.
Marked:
Made in England
Ground in Germany
>spine to edge
LeCoultre made some cool straight razors 100 years ago with replaceable blades. You still honed and stropped, but when the blade got worn there were like 3 more in the box. Very thin and held in the spine with a set screw. Would be easier to replicate that