Smiling Wedge WIP

carbonsteel928

carbonsteel928

Joined
Feb 15, 2010
Messages
696
This smiling razor will be done in W2 for the purpose of pulling a cloudy hamon. I've made other 8/8 but have not attempted to do differential hardening on them; this is definitely a first. The design is modeled after an older Wade and Butcher that caught my eye a while ago but was WAY outside of my razor budget. The blade will also be hollow ground on a 72" radiused platen for just a slight hollow that is nearly flat.

As always, any and all criticism and tips are welcome.

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Cutting the paper pattern out from a photocopy of the original

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The pattern is adhered to the steel billet with spray adhesive

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For the sake of redundancy the pattern is scratched into the steel with a carbide scribe and repeated with a black permanent marker

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Primary profile with bandsaw, 12" wheel and spindle sander.

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Grain Refinement prior to grinding bevels
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Looks like a very nice blade design to me. There are only 2 things that I would not care for as a straight razor user. The first being the sharp heel. I would much rather have a more rounded heel as in the 2nd photo in your first post. The other is the thumb notch which may or may not be too small in use. You would really have to use the blade to find out for sure. Still overall very nice. Thanks for posting photos of the process to make them.

Bob
 
Thank you Bob for stopping by and commenting; this subforum is a desert. The heel will be knocked off and rounded toward the end, I just always leave that till last and the notch is very shallow but works well. I prefer even a shallow notch to jimping. :-)
 
carbonsteel928 said:
Thank you Bob for stopping by and commenting; this subforum is a desert. The heel will be knocked off and rounded toward the end, I just always leave that till last and the notch is very shallow but works well. I prefer even a shallow notch to jimping. :-)
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Well, this is a knife forum and the razor forum is an add on after thought filler from what I can see. Glad you will round off the heel when finishing the blade. It can be a chore not to slice yourself with a spike point but adding a sharp corner at the heel only doubles the trouble. My preference is for thicker and wider tangs with jimping top and bottom, thumb notch or not. Like so many things in wet shaving it is mostly about preferences not if something is right or wrong. I'll take a shoulderless blade any day too.

Bob
 
Unfortunately, there is not much traffic in this corner of the forum, but it seems the signal to noise is high here;)

Nice work. I'll be interested to see the finisher work.
 
BobbyH said:
Well, this is a knife forum and the razor forum is an add on after thought filler from what I can see. Glad you will round off the heel when finishing the blade. It can be a chore not to slice yourself with a spike point but adding a sharp corner at the heel only doubles the trouble. My preference is for thicker and wider tangs with jimping top and bottom, thumb notch or not. Like so many things in wet shaving it is mostly about preferences not if something is right or wrong. I'll take a shoulderless blade any day too.

Bob
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Afterthought or not, it is sure nice to have a place here on BF to chat with other Wet Shavers. As for the shoulder issue, I left some with a shoulder and did some without. I hope to someday find a better way to add jimping, I'm not opposed to the idea but the methods for executing are limited at best. I'd like to find a file with lower LPI than what is currently on the market.
 
unit said:
Unfortunately, there is not much traffic in this corner of the forum, but it seems the signal to noise is high here;)

Nice work. I'll be interested to see the finisher work.
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If time and circumstance permit, I'd like to see if a PIF type giveaway would do for this quiet section of the BF backwoods. :D
 
carbonsteel928 said:
Afterthought or not, it is sure nice to have a place here on BF to chat with other Wet Shavers. As for the shoulder issue, I left some with a shoulder and did some without. I hope to someday find a better way to add jimping, I'm not opposed to the idea but the methods for executing are limited at best. I'd like to find a file with lower LPI than what is currently on the market.
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When you say you left some with a shoulder and some without do you mean you ground them differently and did you use single or double stabilizers on the shoulderd ones? OTH do you mean you left some with a sharp angle at the heal and some rounded at the heel? If it is the latter case that would be entirely different from being a shoulderless or shouldered blade. All I can say about the jimping and very fine LPI cuts is that it might make the jimping a useless feature. On a using gun I do not care for overly fine checkering for that reason. I think the vintage makers got the checkering about right but it has to be cleanly executed.

Bob
 
Bob, since these are wedges and near wedges a stabilizer seemed out of place. I did ten blades and 3 are completely without a shoulder, I'll post pictures later on in the week. And I agree, fine jimping is rather useless.
 
carbonsteel928 said:
Bob, since these are wedges and near wedges a stabilizer seemed out of place. I did ten blades and 3 are completely without a shoulder, I'll post pictures later on in the week. And I agree, fine jimping is rather useless.
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I think we have a problem in communicating what is meant by shouldered and shoulderless razors. This may help http://straightrazorplace.com/srpwiki/index.php/The_straight_razor#Shoulder_styles . A shouldered blade will have one or two stabilizers. I do have full hollow ground razors that are shoulderless.

When you say wedges do you mean you can lay a straight edge from spine to bevel and see no light between the straight edge and blade face? There is no concavity to the blade at all?

Looking forward to seeing photos later in the week so I can actually see what you mean.

Bob
 
Yes, by wedge I mean FFG on a flat disk and lapped on lapping film and surface plate and by near wedge I mean ground on a radiused platen at either 72, 48, 36, or 12 wheel. When I say shoulder, I'm referring to the plunge area where the blade and shank meet. Though its not part of the blade, I still consider it a shoulder. In regards to shoulderless, the transition point is ground with a swept plunge to avoid any area that could interfere with honing.
 
carbonsteel928 said:
If time and circumstance permit, I'd like to see if a PIF type giveaway would do for this quiet section of the BF backwoods. :D
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I'd be game for that. Actually there is already quite a bit of untold/unmentioned PIF going on;)

That said, I have a few more restorations and customized modern pieces I might be doing this with.
 
carbonsteel928 said:
Yes, by wedge I mean FFG on a flat disk and lapped on lapping film and surface plate and by near wedge I mean ground on a radiused platen at either 72, 48, 36, or 12 wheel. When I say shoulder, I'm referring to the plunge area where the blade and shank meet. Though its not part of the blade, I still consider it a shoulder. In regards to shoulderless, the transition point is ground with a swept plunge to avoid any area that could interfere with honing.
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Now more questions as I know nothing of the technical part of creating a blade. What is FFG on a flat disk, Flat Fing Ground? If that forms a true wedge then honing it in a traditional manner would mean the entire side of the blade forms the bevel, no? Would not mind seeing a toe on shot of one of your wedge grind. By shank I take it you mean tang.

Bob
 
FFG is Full Flat Ground/Grind. Its true that it IS a chore to sharpen a true wedge due to having to flatten the whole bevel but most use a few pieces of tape along the spine to sharpen it. Yes, shank, tang, and shaft are all used interchangeably.

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carbonsteel928 said:
FFG is Full Flat Ground/Grind. Its true that it IS a chore to sharpen a true wedge due to having to flatten the whole bevel but most use a few pieces of tape along the spine to sharpen it. Yes, shank, tang, and shaft are all used interchangeably.
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OK so when it is FFG the bevel is 17 degrees without adding tape to the spine? Yea I too use a layer of tape when honing, several if the geometry is really buggered up. Yea I guess people do use those terms interchangeably these days but I have always thought along the lines that a straight razor has a tang, a knife has a shank and a screw driver has a shaft. Anyhow, I'll stay tuned for the finished product.

Bob
 
How peculiar, I've always called it a shank on a razor and a tang when speaking of a knife. I do true wedges at about 16 and hollows at 17 degrees when possible.
 
Thanks to Unit I have become a huge fan of wedges. My favorite blade to shave with is a smiling wedge. To say I am excited to see this work in progress is an understatement of the highest magnitude.
 
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