Straight razor WIP (Heavy in pics)

[Drac]

Good day all,

Had a trip down to Houston for some lesson's from Bob, a gentleman who crafts straights. Took a lot of photos as we went for notes and memory aids. Bear with me I'm not the best photographer and there are a lot of photos. There are two sets. One is Bob as he is working. Demonstrating each step for me. The second set is my two after each step.

Here's where we were are working on the design. Laying it out on the graph paper with a standard size of 6 x 1. Worked out 3 designs with Bob's help. Chose the first and third one -


Some of Bob's examples and sketches -


Chopping the bar stock off -


We use spray adhesive to attach the designs to the steel. Bob than uses an etcher to transfer the design to the steel. Nice idea that I plan to use in the future -


Using the same cutter we removed a lot of bulk material -


Refining the profile with a coarse belt on the grinder's platen -


Mine of after above -


Further refining the profile with a small wheel -


Mine profile and ready for shaping -



Rounding the edges with the slack belt area -

[Drac]

Tapering the tang, Reducing it on both sides -



Shaping the tang. Rounding it out for it final shape -


Mine tapered and shaped. Notice I already made a mistake of not taking off the scale from the blade area. Cost me a bit of work later -



Bob putting on his mark and serializing the blades. Mine will will be marked later since I use electro chemical etching -



Here is my contribution to the lessons. Some filework, in this case twisted rope. Uses a chainsaw and modified marking file. Here is the first steps -


The filework after shaping and sanding -


Here's my 2 ready for hogging -



Here Bob sets up the grinder for the 8" wheel for the first grind -


Here is the grinding setup ready. Area shows the area we are going to aim for removing with this first grind -


The knives marked to show how much metal will be removed for heat treat -

[Drac]

And the grinding begins -


Here is the test to make sure the wheel is lined up and square to the rest -


Let the sparks begin -


A quick touch to 80 grit checks to make sure the grind is even -


Cleaned up and ready for heat treat -


Hardening setup. Mini-forge and quenching pot heated to 150F -


Getting the blade up to non-magnetic for quenching. Notice the tang is outside so it doesn't get hardened -


And the quench -


Here the blades are getting ready for the first temper. Bob uses a deep fryer for it. Gets a 2 hour hot oil bath -


After the first temper it gets a dry ice bath overnight. This gives 1-1.5 additional points of hardness without risking chipping along the edge -

[Drac]

The next morning after the blades come back to room temp and go back into the deep fryer for another hour -


Here we start back into the grinding the blade. Starting here with a 8" wheel to further refine the hollow grind. Thinning the edge to about .020 -



Here is what it looks like after thinning -


Got to look for the 6" setup but until than it was the next wheel. This on is where we start raising the hollow grind. It is ground to about the same mark as the 8" -




Here we move on to the 4" wheel to really get the hollow going. Setting it up -


Grinding out the area above where we had previously ground. In my case the area almost reaches the previous grinds. Should make it a bit easier to clean up -


Here they are after the grinds. You get a good idea where the wheel is grinding -


Here we move on to the 2" wheel. This really thins out the blade area. On this we did have to go back with a quick adjustment to knock down a bump that is left after grinding high on the spine. This is normal and turns the large bump into 2 smaller ones that are easier to sand out.

Let me add real quick here that since we were running out of time Bob switched from grinding one of his and letting me duplicate it on both of mine to him grinding one of mine and I doing the other -


Here is the results of the last grind on the blade -

[Drac]

Here we move back to the 8" wheel to knock down the shoulders so the have a better flow -


All done with the grinder -


And a quick buffing to cleaning up and they are ready for the joyful hand sanding -


At this point I was running out of time to get home to my wife before going to bed (work 6-2:30) so since I have some knife making skills Bob was pretty sure I could sand these out and put the handles on without to much trouble. Besides I could always contact him real quick if I suddenly forgot.

[Drac]

The rest takes place back at my shop. There was quite a delay while waiting for some wood from WSSI. Since the blades need 6" wood there was a delay on the drying.

I took Bob's advice and just sat on the couch with the blade attached to a magnet and sanded while watching a movie. Got the first one done with 200 grit getting out the grind lines and ridges -


After a lot of sanding I got the other one cleaned up to 220 grit. Got all the grind lines out -


Also got the the top one done with 320. Not sure if it was my grinding (I did the post HT grinding on the top one) or my sanding but the edge isn't straight. It has a slight curve in the middle.

Got the blades sanded and buffed. For those of you who may not have had a chance to do shop work let me tell you that can be a little nerve wracking. The buffer is the most dangerous machine in the shop. It can catch and throw a blade is a second. This was even more so since the blades are already sharp. That is normally the last thing I do when making a knife -


Here is one of the blades laid out with the handle design. These were done back at Bob's -


Blades, handles, and parts -


Trimming the handles -


Profiling the outside on the disc -


Here is where I wish I had done this at Bob's. I don't have large wheel to sand the inside perfectly smooth. Had to do it by hand -


Still not perfect but as good as I will get them. Left the end undone since I still have to shape them with the spacer -


Splitting the scales. Here is another area I wished I had done at Bob's (looks like the handle should have been done at Bob's period). I was not able to split the wood cleanly -

[Drac]

The spacers. Following advise I saved the tip of the pattern for making it -


The handles are drilled with 3/32 and the inside is countersunk with 1/8 for the barrels. Don't need to trim the blade barrel but the other end with the spacer/wedge needed to be trimmed as did the screws. The wedge is ground down a bit so the blade "catches" at the top and doesn't swing through. Getting everything together -


Still have to do the finish sanding but it may end up being usable -






The main issue I seem to have the blade is twisted. It lines up outside but as soon as I close it it goes to one side but only the edge. I must have ground it wrong.

Here are the two finish straights again -








It is finished farther than I would normally but straights are expected to be finished to mirror.

The blades still need to go out to be sharpened. I don't have all the stones necessary to make it "shave ready" and no experience in using them if I did. In this case it is better to send them to a professional.

Jim

[J.Lec]

great WIP thanks for taking the time to put this together for us.
been thinking about doing a straight razor now have an idea of where to begin
thanks again
J