A Damascus Razor – Start to Finish – Part Three

 

Before I forget, as the design of wire inlay is put into the steel, care must be given to be sure that the weave of the Celtic-like ribbons alternate going over the top and then pass under the next ribbon as it is being crossed. You don’t want two bands of ribbon in a row passing over the top or have two bands going under crossing bands. So, it’s over/under over/under over/under and not over/over over/under. Does that make a lick of sense? Anyone? Beuler? Beuler? Ok, I’ll dispense with the comedy.

The next process is to design and put the wire inlay in the tang. This is also a freehand process. Measured, but freehand, nevertheless. Once again, square channels are cut and then undercut to accept the gold wire. Here is where we are at.

Here is where I messed up a bit… I forgot to take progressive pics of the inlay process for the tang surfaces. Dang it! Well, we will jump right into what it looks like after the gold is pounded into the channel, cut flush, sanded, and put through the heat treat process. Gold melts around 1,700 degrees or so which means the razor bake should not affect the wire inlay at all.. I hope.

I had my friend, Bill Coffey, do the heat treating for me. He took it to 1,500 degrees and quenched in some fancy-dancy special oil. After that, as you most probably know, the steel must be tempered. Since the amount of follow-up grinding was minimal, I did that before completing the tempering process. Nothing that requires much talent there… I threw it in my wife’s oven at 400 degrees, let it cool to room temperature and did it again. Double tempered. When you hear “double temper”, that’s what it means. Not so difficult, eh?

Here is what it looks like immediately after heat treat but before it has been tempered.

 

Not so pretty at this stage, right? Have faith, my friends. Sandpaper is your friend. And that’s precisely what happens next. Sanding everything down where it needs to be.

Sanding down the steel surfaces with the higher grits of sandpaper also reveals the pattern in the damascus steel. It has to be viewed at the right angle to see it, but it looks pretty good so far. What-a-ya say?

‘Bout time for some tempering. Don’t tell my wife I use her oven for this stuff. Tempering adds a bit of color, but not the right color. It is not etched either, and that’s one of the desireable characteristics of damascus. That’ll come soon.

 

Now we’re back to some light sanding again to prepare for the acid etching process with ferric chloride.

And here ya have it after a “secret” amount of time in the acid bath and another little trick or two to get this effect.

 

 

  

Now it’s time to put some ivory on this puppy. Oh yeah! Let me remind everyone that this is legal ivory. It came from a tusk that came to the U.S. in the 40’s as a decorative carving. I’m thinkin’ that there is more art in the form of some nice scales than in carvings, so the short tusk got cut up and put to good use in addition to just being able to look on with some appreciation at nature’s beauty. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also made a box for the razor so it can be displayed or just have a safe place to sit while you prepare for your shave… Oh, and does it ever shave!!! Pics of the box to come…