I recently bought a lot of four vintage straight razors, one German, one English, one USA and one from India. On another post I read that blades from India are generally not great shavers but the other countries make good shavers. My question is how does spine loss due to honing ,I suppose, harm a razor? Secondly, how much is too much spine loss. I am referring to spine loss at the top edge, not the top. Sorry for not using all the correct terms but I think you can guess what I am talking about. Can I put layers of tape on the edge to make the proper angle and set a proper edge?
How much is too much spine loss?
- Thread starter TimD.
- Start date
honing should proportionally wear away the spine width as much as the edge width (size). the built in angle is built in. messing up that built in angle is the answer to your question about too much spine width loss.
you can add tape for many reasons, one of them being to compensate for lack of enough spine width.
you can add tape for many reasons, one of them being to compensate for lack of enough spine width.
Someone could have used too much force directed on the spine and remove too much material. The width of the blade and the height of the spine provides the info to see if it's still "good".
- Thread starter
- #4
Are there established standards for say a 5/8 blade should have a spine that is so thick? If you can imagine a person honing a blade and at the end stroke they hook the blade and apply greater force to the end furthest from the handle thereby causeing more material being taken from the spine towards the far end from the handle. Would I need to take the whole spine thickness to the thinnest point of the spine to get a even edge or can I build up the low point of the spine with tape? We are talking about the last 1 inch of spine.
lots of threads her about bevel angle
here is one Bevel Calculation Formula
if you have thebright thickness tape and want to try to conpensate, gofor it.
otherwise you could just have a razor that is not edge/spine parallel but still is straight, if you just keep it the way itnis and adjust your grip if needed.
it all depends on what you prefer. if you want to grind away and lose some spine (maybe tape all if needed then) thats ok.
the easiest is to hone without and have a non parallel edge
here is one Bevel Calculation Formula
if you have thebright thickness tape and want to try to conpensate, gofor it.
otherwise you could just have a razor that is not edge/spine parallel but still is straight, if you just keep it the way itnis and adjust your grip if needed.
it all depends on what you prefer. if you want to grind away and lose some spine (maybe tape all if needed then) thats ok.
the easiest is to hone without and have a non parallel edge
- Thread starter
- #6
Yes, that makes sense. I am most concerned with making a decent shaver. The razors were cheap enough so I will experiment. It seems like there are the cheap and not so good new razors, the expensive and good razors and the vintage razors that could be good again with some work. I choose the later. I do appreciate the advice and do read what others have done to make vintage shavers come back to life.
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