Straight Razors

I've started playing with making straight razors. Below are what I've come up with so far. They are much different than hunting or kitchen knives.

Above is a cheap razor that I reground the blade on and made a new one-piece handle for out of Lignum vitae. I don't think that it is ever one that I would try shaving with, but it was a good learning experience.

The above two pictures are the before-and-after of a razor that I picked up for $15 at an antique store. My guess is that it is about 100 years old. I re-ground the blade since it had a chip in it. Then I made a new cocobolo handle for it. This one needs honed yet, but I think it may be a good usable razor for another 100 years.

This is a "shavette". Basically it is a straight razor that takes replaceable blades. This one uses standard safety razor blades. I polished the metal parts up and made a new handle for it. The handle is one piece of Cocobolo. This one I have actually used. It does a pretty good job.

It has been really fun with these to peen my own rivets using brass rod and a ball peen hammer.