should SR edge lie flat?

[wergild]

Hi everyone,

Extremely newbie question here, but should the edge of a straight razor lie completely flat against a flat surface? I ask because I misunderstood some stropping diagrams when I first picked up a couple of straight razors and was stropping with a fair amount of pressure on the blade so that the blade was quite taut against the spine and edge. Later, I noticed a couple of these blades didn't lie completely flat against table tops when I was examining them - they were close, but not touching on every point along the entire length of the edge (I had never thought to look at this before stropping, so can't compare to their condition before). I assume this is probably normal among vintage restored blades, that truly flat edges are probably less common and that I'm just being paranoid, but I wanted to confirm and figured it would be of interest to future beginners if I started a thread on this topic.

 

[stone and strop]

It CAN be flat but most are not and have some "smile" to them.

 

[wergild]

It CAN be flat but most are not and have some "smile" to them.

Thanks - I had understood a "smile" or "frown" to mean that the bottom of the razor, when viewed from the wide side of the blade as if you were cutting down into the table, was not completely level. Are they also visible as space under the edge of the blade when the razor is laid flat on its side and viewed against the table's surface at eye level?

 

[stone and strop]

Yes, a smile or frown is the edge itself.
A photo would be nice to see. If the razor is on its side it should at least contact in the middle but there should be no gap in the middle if it is touching on the ends.

 

[wergild]

Yes, a smile or frown is the edge itself.
A photo would be nice to see. If the razor is on its side it should at least contact in the middle but there should be no gap in the middle if it is touching on the ends.

It may be a bit hard to see, but this is what I mean. Now that I think about it geometrically, though, it seems that a smiling blade would touch in the widest part of the edge first (the middle) so one would expect the outer ends of the edge to be lifted if the middle were touching a surface. Is that correct?

 

[stone and strop]

Correct.
I thought you were saying it was NOT touching in the center which would be a problem.
Your razor looks fine. It has a slight smile to it which is why it lays that way.