Straight Razor - Construction

Construction

Straight razors consist of a blade sharpened on one edge and a handle attached to the blade through a pin. The blade can then rotate in and out of the handle. The blade can be made of either stainless steel, which is resistant to rust but can be more difficult to hone, or high-carbon steel, which is much easier to hone, obtains a sharper edge but will rust more easily than stainless steel if neglected. Cheap stainless steel straight razors from Asia and more expensive stainless steel and carbon steel razors from Europe are available.

A razor blade starts as a shape called the blank supplied by the steel manufacturer.

Forging

The first step is to clean the blank using a heavy forge. The material used for open razors is steel with a minimum carbon content of 0.6%. This percentage of carbon content ensures optimum hardness, flexibility and resistance to wear. Following the forging stage, a hole is drilled in the tang at the pivot point. This is a crucial step, since after the steel hardening process it would be impossible to drill. This process requires great skill.

Hardening and tempering

The steel is hardened through a special process where the forged steel blade is heated up to approximately 760 degrees Celsius (or about 1400F) dependent on the specific steel. This heating enables fast and uniform heating of the steel at the optimum temperature for maximum hardness. The tempering stage follows the hardening process, where the blade is heated in a bath of oil at a temperature between 200 °C - 400 °C. Tempering imparts the steel its flexibility and toughness according to the phase diagrams for steel. There are three types of steel blade according to the level of tempering it has received. Hard-tempered, medium-tempered and soft-tempered. Hard-tempered edges last longer but sharpening them is difficult. The converse is true for soft-tempered blades. The characteristics of medium-tempered blades are in between the two extremes.

Grinding

Following the processes of hardening and tempering, the blanks are ground, according to the two fundamental blade cross sectional area profiles.

Finishing

Subsequent to grinding, the blade is polished to various degrees of gloss. The finest finish, used in the most expensive razors, is the mirror finish. Mirror finish is the only finish used if gold leafing is to be part of the decoration of the blade.

Satin finish requires less polishing time and therefore is not as expensive to produce. This finish is mostly used with black acid etching. Satin finish can sometimes be applied, as a compromise, to the back of the blade while the mirror finish and gold leafing are applied to the more visible front of the blade. This way the blade will not be as expensive as a fully mirror finished one. Metal plating is also used, using nickel or silver, but it is not preferred because the plating eventually erodes through use revealing the underlying metal which is often of inferior quality.

Blade decoration

The blade is decorated by engraving or gold leafing depending on the price. Less expensive blades undergo an electrolytic black acid engraving process. For more expensive blades, gold leafing applied by hand is employed, following a traditional process.

Sharpening

Sharpening is the final stage in the process. At first the blade is sharpened on a grinding wheel. Following that the blade can be honed by holding the blades against the flat side of rotating round stones, or by drawing the blade across stationary flat stones. The cutting edge is finished using a strop. Sharpening is usually not completed during manufacturing, instead being done after purchase.