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Advice on honing away a frown

I have honed many razors, but never one with a frown.

I recently purchased a Guillermo Hoppe, for a good price and from the photos it seems to have a slight frown. Of course nothing but edge perfection will do so I would like to get rid of the frown.

The way I see it there are two options:

1) Bread knife it until the edge is straight and hone - I have done this to get rid of an unwanted smile on a GD, but it causes quite severe spine wear to get a decent bevel set again, and if possible I don't want that on the Guillermo.

2) Hone it with added pressure on the end of the frown, and hope it straightens out.

Advice from you guys that have successfully dealt with the issue will be appreciated.
 

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Interesting to hear bread-knifing as an option! I once tried bread-knifing a yanagi to remove some small chipping, and it was a massive mistake. It took me about 5 seconds to do, and probably nearing 15 hours to sort out. 😬

The geometry of a san-mai yanagiba is somewhat more complex than that of a SR, and it has an awful lot more metal, because of the length, and particularly - the wide bevel. Good to know though that it can be done to correct SRs, without making you want to slice your wrists and end it all somewhere down the line!
 
I have honed many razors, but never one with a frown.

I recently purchased a Guillermo Hoppe, for a good price and from the photos it seems to have a slight frown. Of course nothing but edge perfection will do so I would like to get rid of the frown.

The way I see it there are two options:

1) Bread knife it until the edge is straight and hone - I have done this to get rid of an unwanted smile on a GD, but it causes quite severe spine wear to get a decent bevel set again, and if possible I don't want that on the Guillermo.

2) Hone it with added pressure on the end of the frown, and hope it straightens out.

Advice from you guys that have successfully dealt with the issue will be appreciated.

Frown??
I can't see one even with a straight edge held to the monitor. Do you mean at the toe?
 
I feel like breadknife and tape isnt the way to go for me. If the frown is set into the spine too, then the tape wont help. It would keep the frown coming back. No?
 
I put the image against a straight line ruler in ios preview, it looks ok-ish in the area i think you think is a frown.

However, that edge is are already very close to a smile, i’d keep that going and hone a rolling x-stroke and that frown should slowly roll itself out.
 
That is a better photo and yes, it definitely has one.
Thank you.
I would like to see the hone wear as well to see if it aligns with a warp.
I don't usually bread knife an edge but rather lean it at a 45 and dress on w/d paper till straight.
If you do this you must be very careful when starting your honing and address the spine immediately to make sure you do not introduce another frown through past wear.
Only a few wipes will tell you if you are getting contact where you want it.
Spine controls the edge unless it is poorly ground.
 
That is a better photo and yes, it definitely has one.
Thank you.
I would like to see the hone wear as well to see if it aligns with a warp.
I don't usually bread knife an edge but rather lean it at a 45 and dress on w/d paper till straight.
If you do this you must be very careful when starting your honing and address the spine immediately to make sure you do not introduce another frown through past wear.
Only a few wipes will tell you if you are getting contact where you want it.
Spine controls the edge unless it is poorly ground.
To me it looks like typical wear expected from a well used razor, honed on a narrow hone.
Think the best would be to start with a sharpie test, to see what areas of the spine and edge make contact.

I will then consider options, but you are right to say that if the wear on the spine is not even, it will translate to the edge. Makes sense. The spine, after all, is the honing guide.

Hope it arrives soon, looking forward to learn something :lemo:
 

Slash McCoy

I freehand dog rockets
When I first started, I would breadknife, and then saw the error of my ways. You gain nothing by breadknifing. If your honing media is flat, then simply honing will gitter done. When a lot of steel must come off the edge, a lot of steel must also come off the spine. The damage is already done, by the person (I almost used a bad word there!) who honed a frown into it. If there is any doubt, measure the spine thickness and the distance from the top of the spine bevel to the edge, and post the measurements. Someone will calculate your bevel angle for you, and you will know whether you should lean toward greater or lesser steel removal from the spine. Sweet spot is generally around 16.5° but a degree either way is fine, and two degrees will usually be sorta okay.

The main thing is you are gonna spend a lot of time on a fairly coarse stone or other media, and it needs to be flat. Oh, you might consider trimming the heel, too. It will probably help. Just use a quarter or a big washer as a template and mark the blade with a sharpie, and grind back to the line. <EDIT> Practice this first so you understand how easy it is to push the temper by overheating! You can ruin an otherwise good or salvageable blade! You can always use a coarse diamond plate or the side of a stone, or sandpaper. Please don't use a regular bench grinder, at any rate, though I do use a belt sander for this.</EDIT>

On your coarsest stone you don't want to continue until the frown is absolutely completely gone. This is because when you are done with your coarsest stone, you still have to get rid of those deep scratches. You will do that with your follow-on stones or film or whatever. At the same time your next finer stone is getting rid of the very coarse scratches, it can also be reducing the frown and getting you closer to a good bevel. By the time you get to about the 1k level, then it should all come together, the very coarse scratches gone and the bevel fully set with a nice straight edge and a good bevel angle. At this point, if you have "really bad hone wear" LOL on your spine and you want to do something about it, you can take some sandpaper and work the spine back round again. Hand sand starting with 400 grit. Or use a 1000 grit belt on a belt sander, if you have already done this on an expendable razor. Finish with 1k grit pinched over the spine (from the back, of course!) and the razor ran back and forth through the pinched sandpaper. You can polish it up nice with a dremel, felt wheel, and diamond paste. Try 3μ to start, then 1μ and if you want a mirror finish then on through every grit up to .1μ. A thin strip of tape on the edge is a good idea while doing this. Get any and all polishing done now, before you run your honing progression and finish.

I have a 220 grit I think Suehiro that I usually use as my repair stone, but more often I use sandpaper instead of a stone. Scratch depth is all over the place, with sandpaper, so don't get too coarse without due consideration for that. I use back and forth strokes, one side at a time, fairly heavy pressure to start with, like the weight of my whole arm. Maybe sets of 50. Sharpie applied at edge and at spine. Looking for the sharpie'd portions to get smaller, saving some for the next finer grit. By the end of 600 or 1000 grit stage I expect to have all the sharpie gone, and a burr along the entire edge or very nearly so, deflected upward on the side that was up last, on the hone. Diminishing sets with diminishing pressure to remove the burr. finish the bevel setting stage with light pressure (weight of hand, or less and alternating regular laps, some pull strokes, and some very short x strokes. Examine, and test, the edge, and prove that the bevel is set and that the razor is ready for the progression of midrange and finish stones. You might want to clean up the bevel still more, with a 1k Naniwa Superstone. Or some 12μ film.

I would like to stress that x strokes are really not appropriate when honing out a frown on a flat hone. Save the x stroking for the intermediate stones or films. The emphasis in the beginning stages should be on straightening out the edge while preserving or correcting a good bevel angle. Some guys like to concentrate on reducing the toe and achieving a straight edge that way. I prefer to reduce heel, as well, and this almost always requires some trimming of the heel profile. So when I do this, the result should be a blade that is about the same width at heel, as at toe. As in all things razor, YMMV and there are many paths. Some better than others.
 
Removing a frown, no matter how you straighten the edge, bread-knifing, high angle honing or just honing, you must remove exactly the same amount of steel. You do not “Remove” a chip or frown, you remove all the other surrounding steel to the level of the bottom of the chip or frown.

Sharpening any tool, bread-knifing has always been the most efficient and accepted method and actually removes less steel, because you make a straight edge then, get the bevels to meet at an edge that is already straight, so no guessing involved.

That razor has been honed on the tang and stabilizer. That style of spine / tang transition can be challenging to hone. Moving the heel corner forward will help avoid that problem.

At one time the edge was straight and even with the spine. You can easily see how much of the edge width has been worn away.

I too would hone a smile to the edge to keep as much width as possible, do correct the heel and hone with a rolling X.

03D03000-4838-4A3F-8F41-AAE26EC4AEF2 a.jpg
 
The heavy heel can be remedied by keeping it off the hone. Hone at a 45 degree angle to the hone. Spine and edge on the stone. But trimming the heel only takes 30 seconds with a Dremel.
 
If you want to make it smile, make a template of the existing razor from poster board. Experiment with shapes with a sharpie until you find the curve you want, then transfer to the blade with a sharpie and grind slowly to the sharpie layout line.

Google (Razor make me smile) for a good step by step tutorial on making a smiling edge.
 

Slash McCoy

I freehand dog rockets
Removing a frown, no matter how you straighten the edge, bread-knifing, high angle honing or just honing, you must remove exactly the same amount of steel. You do not “Remove” a chip or frown, you remove all the other surrounding steel to the level of the bottom of the chip or frown.

Sharpening any tool, bread-knifing has always been the most efficient and accepted method and actually removes less steel, because you make a straight edge then, get the bevels to meet at an edge that is already straight, so no guessing involved.

That razor has been honed on the tang and stabilizer. That style of spine / tang transition can be challenging to hone. Moving the heel corner forward will help avoid that problem.

At one time the edge was straight and even with the spine. You can easily see how much of the edge width has been worn away.

I too would hone a smile to the edge to keep as much width as possible, do correct the heel and hone with a rolling X.

View attachment 1347895
No. The same amount of steel must be removed, period. Steel that does not have to be removed does not have to be removed. Steel that has to be removed, has to be removed. Breadknifing saves nothing, only serves to increase the bevel angle, which may or might not be a good thing, depending. I truly don't understand why so many people believe that breadknifing somehow saves steel and that simply honing wastes steel. The exact same steel, the very same molecules, must be removed, either way. If straight honing removes more steel than necessary, you are doing it wrong. There should be no "guessing". You can easily see where you are or are not applying proper emphasis. Your sharpie is your friend, if there is any doubt.

I had a GF once who always yelled at me when driving. Here in New Orleans, most major intersections are "No Left Turn". You have to make a right and a U-turn, or else a U-turn and a right. One particular intersection on the way to my union hall had a nice turn lane to the right, and a crappy one straight ahead on the other side of the intersection when approaching from the North. So, I always turned right, made my U-turn, and walah, I am headed the correct direction. She insisted that this was the long way, and that it was shorter to go through the intersection, make the U-turn, then turn right. I pointed out over and over that since both U-turns were exactly the same distance from the intersection, the same distance was covered no matter which way. She insisted that since I was actually traveling the OPPOSITE direction from the destination when I did it my way, that it was the long way, and that going straight through the intersection at least was only 90° and not 180° from the final direction of travel. Regardless, same distance covered, but she wasn't hearing it. Same thing with breadknifing. It is not a shortcut at all. In fact most guys who breadknife will probably remove MORE steel, setting the bevel and then wondering if they got it or not, or finding out they don't got it, and setting the bevel some more. By simply honing, when the last bit of frown is gone, the bevel is indeed set, and no more coarse work is needed.

There is a perfect bevel and perfect edge lurking within the poor mistreated razor. All that is to be done is all steel outside those bounds be made to go away, in a controlled manner, with due regard for scratch depth that would cause extra steel to be removed to refine the bevel. Breadknifing is one method that will work. Not breadknifing will work better. Nothing wrong with a honer breadknifing because that is his preference or that is the way he has always done it and he isn't gonna change, but doing it because it will save steel is illogical.
 
“I truly don't understand why so many people believe that breadknifing somehow saves steel and that simply honing wastes steel. The exact same steel, the very same molecules, must be removed, either way.If straight honing removes more steel than necessary, you are doing it wrong. There should be no "guessing"

And how do you think the razor got the way it is now. Somebody did more of the same and expected a different result.

Yes in a perfect world, where the honer has mastered honing, maybe there is no difference.

Look at all the razors on the Bay, real world “just hone it out” is not working.

Your quote “No. The same amount of steel must be removed, period”. There are no rules.
 
To me it looks like typical wear expected from a well used razor, honed on a narrow hone.

i'm not sure this is an effect of a narrow hone. i think it's an effect of poor maintenance on standard hones... probably not the casualty of narrow finishing 5x1s. this is more related to bad x strokes going with a "horizontal" placed hone (perpendicular to honer)

OP, it looks like we all agree to disagree, you just need to choose a goal and process.
 
Long time ago I got a 600 dmt. Decided to do some half strokes on a beater eBay special hollow grind. In about 12 seconds I got a frown. No heavy pressure. Just back and forth. I did the same pressure laps etc with a heel leading stroke and nada. Narrow hone can for sure. But this was a 3 inch wide dmt. I use heel leading strokes even for finishing. X strokes too. But anything is certainly possible.
 
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