Is my razor warped, or am I?

[Zamonium]

Upon having great difficulties honing my razor using lapping films, and at the suggestion of Slash, I used a permanent marker to color in the bevel before doing a couple of laps on my 12um film. Here was the result:



The green part of the line next to the razor represents where the edge was contacting the film. The red indicates where it was not.

There is about a half inch of bevel near the heel that is never touching the film on only one side! Does this most likely boil down to bad technique, or is it an indication of a problem with the blade itself?

The heel and toe are also not making contact toward the tips. I'm guessing this is a technique issue. Any suggestions for that would be welcome as well.

Thanks!!

 

[casus4844]

Could you place it on a hone and see if the whole blade is making contact with the hone first?

Also how are you honing the razor? Straight back and forth? X-pattern? swinging?

I had a similar problem and bread knifed it a bit

 

[life2short1971]

If that is after one or two light forward straight strokes each direction I would say the blade is not warped at all.

 

[Kentos]

The toe is quite rounded, so it isn't surprising it isn't contacting the hone. I would just let it be since to get that area you would need a pronounced rolling stroke.

The heel isn't contacting the hone likely due to interference from the stabilizer. Xstrokes should take care of that.

If it isn't the stabilizer, I could be warped, but normally warp is evidenced with the middle of one side not contacting the hone.

Edit:Scott may have nailed it.

 

[Zamonium]

I finished honing the blade as I normally would with the following result:

1. Ink never left the first half inch from the heel on the one side.
2. Shaves arm hair effortlessly near the toe.
3. Shaves about 20% of arm hair in the middle.
4. Does not shave arm hair nearer to the heel at all.

I washed off the rest of the ink before shave testing on my arm.

Casus, when you say you breadknifed it a bit, did you do that on purpose? Did it help? I am using a straight stroke with the heel leading to avoid hanging the heel off the edge of the honing surface.

Scott, do you mean to say there's probably nothing wrong, or that it looks to be a technique issue rather than a hardware issue?

Thanks so much for your replies, this is very helpful feedback.

 

[Greybeard]

Your razor is not warped.
At some point in time the tip of the blade at the toe broke off. What would normally contact the hone isn't there. You could probably just leave it as Kent suggests. Sharpening that part would require just working on the tip by itself and wouldn't end up being useful for shaving anyway.

The heel part of the blade is not getting sharp because the shoulder is too thick. It's raising the blade off the hone. You can see this by the wear on the shoulder where someone has tried to correct this before. The tapering wear on the shoulder from bottom to top. It may be thicker on one side than the other which is why more of the blade is being sharpened on one side than the other.
Put the marker back on the blade. Butt the shoulder up to the edge of the hone without the shoulder resting on the hone, just the spine and stabilizer part. Do a half dozen half strokes straight up in one direction , then 6 half strokes in the other direction and see how much of the marker is gone. You should see some removal of the marker.

You could try pressure at just the heel part of the blade to sharpen it with a rolling x. You may have to remove some of the shoulder to be able to sharpen the heel.

 

[Zamonium]

Thanks Greybeard, that is extremely helpful. I'll give that a shot.

Edit: It seems that was the problem right there. I think this should go a bit smoother now, but I'll check back in a few hours after I try it out.

 

[BigBull]

A little of both? I know I am.

 

[Slash McCoy]

You got some good replies there. The heel is elevated on one side. A moderate x-stroke will help it for now and enable you to get a proper bevel. To actually correct the core issue you must take down that shoulder/stabilizer. You can do this on a coarse stone or a very aggressive cutter like a DMT. Tape the nose of the razor, both spine and edge. Just wrap tape, about 3 layers, around the end of the blade. This elevates the nose and gives you some emphasis on that shoulder, allowing you to grind it away on the stone. You will have to replenish the tape often. Or if you trust yourself simply apply all of your pressure to the heel of the razor while you deliberately let the shoulder ride on the hone. I don't see the problem as being bad enough to require grinding with a dremel or other power tool, though you could, of course. If you are really feeling froggy you could even completely remove the heel area where the shoulder and stabilizer intrude. I often do this with new Gold Dollar #66 razors and it makes a tremendous difference on them and on some other razors, especially vintage blades that have been used and honed heavily for many decades. In your case definitely not required, but you COULD if you are not averse to risk. Dremels have a nasty habit of grabbing the blade out of unwary hands and slinging it into the next room. Could hurt... both you and the razor. And remember to always wear eye protection with power tools.

Try the sharpie test again, but this time give the blade a pronounced x-stroke. After a couple of laps I am betting you will see most of that ink gone. If it works, give it another shot at setting the bevel. It will take a while to get the bad side down, because with the heel elevated, only the toe was getting attention before. Just remember at some point you or a subsequent owner will have to directly address that stabilizer one way or another.

I agree with the others. The very corner of heel and toe do not need to be sharp. In fact it makes for a safer razor, in newbie hands.

Good luck. I think you will nail it this time. Just don't stop until your bevel is set properly. If you don't get it done on 12u film, you certainly won't get it done on the 1u film!

 

[tomjr]

greybeard has hit the nail on the head, exactly.

 

[Zamonium]

If you are really feeling froggy you could even completely remove the heel area where the shoulder and stabilizer intrude. I often do this with new Gold Dollar #66 razors and it makes a tremendous difference on them and on some other razors, especially vintage blades that have been used and honed heavily for many decades.

Do you have any pictures (before/after even) of the kind of surgery you do on the Gold Dollars? Curious if you carve that part off or just grind it down to hollow it out. If no pics, that's fine, just having a difficult time getting a mental image, but I like the idea.

If I don't go the dremel route, what would you recommend for getting that area down? You mentioned DMT, but I'm not sure what that is (and google only showed results for a psychotropic drug).

Thanks again!

 

[Doc226]

Do you have any pictures (before/after even) of the kind of surgery you do on the Gold Dollars? Curious if you carve that part off or just grind it down to hollow it out. If no pics, that's fine, just having a difficult time getting a mental image, but I like the idea.

If I don't go the dremel route, what would you recommend for getting that area down? You mentioned DMT, but I'm not sure what that is (and google only showed results for a psychotropic drug).

Thanks again!

DMT

They are diamond stones, the coarse ones remove metal very quickly, they can also be used to flatten stones.

 

[Slash McCoy]

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...uot-7-day-set?highlight=7+day+set+gold+dollar

The full treatment might be overkill with that razor. Just get the stabilizer completely out of the honing plane and you are good. Pay particular attention near the spine and edge. As for all the part in between just make it hollow enough to be nowhere near the honing plane and you are fine. Do the same to both sides, even though you aren't having problems with the other side... YET. You could entirely remove the last 5/32" or so of the heel, or just thin down that stabilizer which is what I think you will probably end up doing and is what I would probably do for that particular razor.

Even if you remove the heel end, you still need to address the spine end of the shoulder. Often when the razor is honed heel-leading for years and years, you develop a thickening of the spine where it does not wear like the rest of the spine does. And there is the shoulder itself, too. Just concentrate on fairing it down to match the main part of the spine, or even be ever so slightly thinner.

Be patient. This is very hard steel and it sands slowly. With power tools, only touch it for a second or two and let it cool. If you see the dreaded blue stain you messed up and pulled the temper. You might want to practice on a junk razor first. Have your "oh, CRAP" moments on a razor you don't care anything about, not on this one. Thin steel overheats a lot quicker than thick steel so be absolutely paranoid careful near the edge. Safer to do it by hand. BTW be extra careful not to cut yourself. I have got some really bad cuts sanding and polishing razors, even "dull" ones.

If you are in no hurry, you could get a few Gold Dollars to practice on. They are now well under $4 each, including shipping from China. An ebay search will turn up the current cheapest source. I think there is a price war going on over these in Hong Kong, where the main vendors are. They take about 2 weeks to ship to the U.S. so you may as well get a bunch of them, maybe a dozen or so. You might even want to go for the whole enchilada and do a complete workover on a couple. They can be great shavers with some work. Most of my go-to razors these days are modded Gold Dollars.

I might or might not be replying after this, so don't think nothing if you ask me something and I don't answer. I got to go to work tomorrow and I will be mostly out of touch for the next 4 months or so. But there are plenty others who will help you along with your razor, and you are off to a good start, just knowing more or less what needs to be done.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I doubt the tip broke off. This is pretty common on razors that were A: restored poorly, or B: cheap in their day and owned/used for a very long time. It means the toe and heal were pressed or angled into the hone during honing and so received much more honing at said spots than they did at others (the center). Since the whole mechanic of razor design is depending on it laying flat and even on the sharpening surface rather than requiring incline (the way knives, axes, and most other cutting implements do during sharpening), when uneven honing occurs, it makes even honing no longer effective. Basically, the spots that aren't sharpening aren't sharpening because you aren't making the same mistakes the previous honer did.

My solution with razors like this used to be to use a very narrow hone (I have a 1" coti and an ~0.5" les lat coti, several 1" thuri's and arkansas, and many others, I've even honed on the side of barber hones before), and to basically TREAT it like it's a tool other than a razor. This means you have to be good at sharpening. Real damn good. And patient. As such my CURRENT solution with these razors is to put them in a drawer full of razors I don't use.

 

[Greybeard]

I doubt the tip broke off.

Nice to see you back and posting again, Ian.

Not a big deal, but the tip did break off.

a) If you enlarge the pics a bit you'll see that the blade edge at the toe is slightly jagged.
b) There is no excessive hone wear on the spine at the toe which you would see if someone sharpened it incorrectly, just normal wear.
c) The bevel ends abruptly in a bit of a spike where it encounters the break. It would continue to blend into the toe if the razor had been sharpened incorrectly.
d) The bevel becomes progressively less sharp at it moves closer to the heel. This is because the spine flares out at the shoulder and is raising the blade edge off the hone.

The razor was sharpened correctly. The shoulder is a manufacturing defect and has to be taken down to hone it with a normal x stroke. You can work around it, but the OP is new to honing.

 

[SliceOfLife]

It looks like you're right in pic 2. Pic 1 it looks more like they just pushed down and forward on a 3" wide hone at the top of the spine, toe end. And there looks like a lot of dremel scuffing up near the spine, again toe end in pic 1. My eyes aren't good enough to say which is the case from these pics but you may be right. The answer in my opinion would be to know the original depth of the blade. If it was a 4/8" I couldn't be right as there's not enough blade gone from heel and toe to explain it away as mishoned and then releveled at the edge and buffed. If it was 9/16ths or more I'd say that what I suspected almost certainly happened, though the tip might have broken as well. From the looks of the shoulder though that was a 4/8" so I'm guessing on looking closer at the pics (to my eyes great regret), you were probably correct.


Although given that the blade looks buffed, I'd guess rather than the tip breaking off, more likely the buffer just dug it a bit too hard into the wheel at the toe. On hollow grinds like that, a half a second too much pressure at the toe on a buffing wheel will quickly take several mm depth off the blade there (if you're lucky, if you aren't lucky it'll grab the blade out of your hands and make you a very sad restorer very quickly).