The Legend of the Scaleless Razor

I have made some rather unorthodox claims before in my Straight Razor pursuits. But I am a man of my word...

Basically, I felt (at the time, though the jury is still out as to whether I was right or not) that the scales on a razor, though effective, are not expressly necessary. They are very useful in terms of the non-loss of fingertips and the protection of the blade, but can actually be a pain in the ass when adjusting grips and such. I posited that there would be some benefit to using a western style straight razor with no scales. They told me I was mad, MAD!!! But I was determined to go through with it, and I finally have had my chance.

I recently had a problem with a Double Arrow straight razor; the cheap, worthless scales were warped, and were hitting the blade, causing some damage to the cutting edge. This necessitated, rather fortuitously, the removal of the scales (and some serious hone time, but that's another story) and so I decided to go through with the scaleless razor idea.

However, due to the aforementioned finger slicing etc., I found it advisable to make something to clean cover the blade--a sheath, as it were. And this I did.
I began with my materials. A bit of metal-epoxy, a thin sheet of metal, and some cloth as a liner (a wool-polyester blend trimmed from a pair of pants left over form some alterations...the closest thing to wool I had on hand).




I trimmed a piece of cloth to fit folded over the blade and reaching halfway down to the cutting edge. I made it long enough to cover the blade from the "shoulders" of the blade to cover the tip with a little flap. I covered this with a thin, roughly even layer of mixed epoxy and waited a couple of minutes until it started to harden a bit, until it was a bit like modelling clay. At this point, I folded the cloth over the blade and molded the epoxy to fit tightly over the spine of the razor.



I let this harden overnight, and in the morning I had a form-fitting, smoothly removable back for my sheath. To finish, I cut a piece of the thin sheet metal which I bent in a weird contraption of my own device to fit snuffly to the thickness of the backpiece, but curved evenly and safely a good half inch from the edge of the razor. I fixed this in place with more epoxy, and I finally had a safe, perfectly fitted sheath that stayed in place quite well.

Popping the scales off the Double Arrow (Very easy, that--I just slipped a knife blade under the cheap brass washer on the back pin, ind PING! Off it came!) and I had my scaleless razor:



I shaved with my contraption this morning, but I'll leave that experience for the honing post...coming soon.