So I have a nice little razor that needed a bit of rust and pit removal. I'd like to make it serviceable as it has lovely striped celluloid scales and is a matching brand to a razor hone I have. Not really interested in making it look pretty just to look at, I want it to look pretty and shave well.
Problem is that the spine is bent. I noticed it midway through the sanding. I won't lay flat on the hone, touching in the middle only on one side and heel and toe on the other. The gap looks huge to the eye, but measures out as about an 8 thousanths inch bow in the middle of the blade. Clearly from the way it sits on the hone it would never hone properly and I can't see how even a rolling X stroke would compensate.
So, is it realistic to straighten this thing (even with the chance of snapping it) or should I give up before I invest more time in making it pretty? I have some ideas on how to straighten it, but my experience in bending hard steel is that it is not easy to get what you want and often you make things worse. But 9 thousanths isn't all that much and I'm willing to give it a try.
Alternatively I guess I could try to grind the spine edges flat to remove the difference and hope that worked. But if the edge is curved as well (hard to see and hard to measure on the edge) then honing a curved edge is going to still be ineffective I would think.
Any ideas?
Problem is that the spine is bent. I noticed it midway through the sanding. I won't lay flat on the hone, touching in the middle only on one side and heel and toe on the other. The gap looks huge to the eye, but measures out as about an 8 thousanths inch bow in the middle of the blade. Clearly from the way it sits on the hone it would never hone properly and I can't see how even a rolling X stroke would compensate.
So, is it realistic to straighten this thing (even with the chance of snapping it) or should I give up before I invest more time in making it pretty? I have some ideas on how to straighten it, but my experience in bending hard steel is that it is not easy to get what you want and often you make things worse. But 9 thousanths isn't all that much and I'm willing to give it a try.
Alternatively I guess I could try to grind the spine edges flat to remove the difference and hope that worked. But if the edge is curved as well (hard to see and hard to measure on the edge) then honing a curved edge is going to still be ineffective I would think.
Any ideas?
But I figured it was toast anyway and it was a good learning experience so I had nothing to lose. I had assumed I would ruin the blade and I'd learn something in the process. I did learn a lot and didn't ruin the blade. I think it must have been bent in the forging before it was hardened and I'm very impressed with the strength but resilience of the metal. I had expected it to be brittle but apparently they did a good job progressively hardening and tempering the steel. The edge seemed quite hard and took a bit of work to put a bevel on. Time will tell I guess when I finish it and try to put a shaving edge on it.
