Looking into Straight Razors

E

europeanoutdoorsman

Joined
Feb 25, 2011
Messages
456
Hello All,
I have been an avid knife fan for awhile. I am looking into picking up a straight razor for shaving.

I looked around a bit and I saw carbon steel razors only. If possible, I'd like a razor made with a higher end SS, like S30V, 154cm, vg-10 or something like that. Does anyone know if one exists?

Also, I saw an O1 razor and it was priced at $300! I know I could pick up an O1 custom blade for around HALF. What is with the price of these things?

Thanks
 
In general, antique razors come in two flavors, carbon, and carbon. there is the odd stainless one, there were stainless lines of production done back in the day in both Solingen and Sheffield. If you are looking at new production, you get more choice, but still, but carbon, or stainless. There are custom guys who do specific steels, I think the cost difference would have to do a lot with the added time for heat-treating and grinding such a thin blade, and possibly the scale material. You can probably get a new Dovo stainless for 150-200 I'd guess.
 
Nope, Razor steel is a bit of a mystery at least to me. sorry man, I couldn't find anything online, maybe you'll have better luck.
 
Check out Butch Harner he makes awesome straight razors from those type of steels
 
Modern high alloy steels aren't used much in razors for various reasons. I make kamisori razors and use 1084. Stored in my bathroom and never had any rust issues. One thing about razor steels, it has to be fine grained, and also have limited carbides. Vanadium carbides are bad, they are large and will not let a razor be sharpened fine enough.

Oh and if you're balking at a $300 razor, then just stay away from Brian Brown razors, hell even production Dovo's go for that much. But that's like saying "why is this Buster Warenski priced so high when I can get a custom Gil Hibben for 1/10 the price?"

Cost is directly proportionate to time/materials. A hand ground full hollow 8/8 with file worked spine is going to cost much more than a near wedge or even quarter hollow 5/8 due to the time involved.

Here is a half hollow grind I did by hand, I could only grind for a few seconds at a time after heat treat, it took a long time to grind it this thin.

2012-09-29165257.jpg



-Xander
 
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