Razor construction

Razor construction

Loup et Bélier (wolf and ram) 6/8” extra hollow carbon steel singing blade. The gold inlaid heads of the wolf and the ram are on a mirror polished (poli glace) Sheffield silver steel blade. The double stabiliser implies full hollow ground blade. The lower side of the shank shows fluting for a more secure grip, while the upper side is smooth. The handle is faux tortoise. The razor comes in a leather pouch. Although the handle does not have a middle plug, the faux tortoise scales are wide apart like an arch and are resistant to deformation

A razor blade starts, at the Thiers Issard factory, as a shape called the blank supplied by the steel manufacturer. Thiers Issard traditionally has used Sheffield silver steel, long considered a superior quality carbon steel.^[1][7] The first step is to clean the blank using a heavy forge process called the detourage. Following the forging stage a hole is drilled in the tang of the blade. This is a crucial step since after the steel hardening process it would be next to impossible to drill hardened steel without employing specialised methods such as electrical discharge machining, and even then the process would be too arduous to be practical. At this pre-hardening stage the decoration or guiochage of the blade is done, since the blade is malleable enough to be carved.^[1]