So it's been a while since I've made a post on here but I find myself with a bit of time, and a rare chip of motivation so here we go.
I watch YouTube videos all the time of people making things. It's great to see professionals taking raw stock and turning out amazing pieces of functional art. One such video was a guy making a straight razor from start to finish and then shaving his mountain manish beard with it. Since I'm into wet shaving and blade making I thought I should make my own. As with many of the blades Iv'e made I started with a bit of Stanely wonder bar and cut a rough piece out with my angle grinder and a cutting disc.
I figured the shape in my head and began to grind it out on my bench grinder, intermittently cooling it to maintain the steels properties.
The shape began to appear and I started the more detailed work; grinding the semi-hollow grind in the blade and filing in the grip ridges.
After I finished that, I used my trusty drill press to make the hole for the pivot pin.
Next came sharpening. The hardest part of a straight razor, it's got to be sharp enough to shave with. I'm not going to lie, sharpening is hard, time consuming, and tedious work.
I began with my most coarse diamond impregnated nickle stone, at 200 grit and ground for 10 strokes each side, for 20 reps. and then I moved up to 300, 10 strokes 20 reps, then 400, then 600 and I switched the pattern to 25 strokes each side for 10 reps. The result could shave hair pretty easily from my arm, but was still pretty rough. I moved on to the next step and began to make the scales. I started with a piece of alder wood and traced a simple shape that would house the blade and cut it out on my dad's band saw. His garage has far more tools than mine does, especially for woodworking, so I did the majority of the work in them over there.
After I cut the rough shapes I used a small half round wood rasp to round them out and get them closer to finished. Once they were shaped, I used a piece of double sided tape and stuck the two halves together and sanded them with a combination of a belt sander and then hand sanding with 220 grit paper to smooth them out. Next up was to place the blade on the scales and mark the pivot hole and then drill it. Once that was finished I used a couple of pop rivets in an unorthodox manner. I cut the flange off the tops and used them for washers and the shaft I cold riveted with a ball peen hammer to attach the works together. Next I measured and cut the wedge piece for the end of the scales. about a 1/8 inch slice of alder that i glued and cold riveted into the toe of the scales to hold the blade in and keep any part from touching the fine edge. After it was all attached, I decided I needed some more detail on the spine. I used my rotary tool on my fine grinder and put some indents along the spine for looks.
The final step was the finish. I chose to use a simple oil based finish. I wiped on a couple coats and after a day or two, I sprayed on a clear acrylic coat to really seal it and make it shiny as well as water resistant due to the environment it was soon to reside in.
After I attempted to shave with it the first time, I found the edge to be lackluster at best. It felt a bit like shaving with a lawnmower or hack saw. I needed better stones. Luckily I have a very good friend who introduced me to wet shaving and sent me, out of the goodness of his bomb diffusing (He's Army EOD), whisky loving heart, he sent me a set of water stones up to 8000 grit. I resharpened the edge with the stones and still found them, frustratingly, to be lacking. I determined I needed to harden the edge to make it hold a finer cutting edge. I used my propane torch to heat the edge to non-magnetic red and quenched it in water. I then began the long tedious process of re establishing the edge, and re sharpening it all the way from 200 to 800 grit. It now cuts a bit better, but I am still missing a few key components to a good straight razor kit, a strop is foremost among the tools I need to get this edge cutting better. It cuts, and I can shave with it, but It is by no means a perfect razor. I think though, for what used to be a crowbar, It turned out damn fine.
