The Wilkinson Empire with a modified GEM blade is a fantastic shave. The idea of despining and corner-clipping a modern SE blade was only discovered in 2011, and it works great! So after I tried one on loan from PJGH a few months ago, I wanted to have one of my own.
When my set arrived it came with four old proprietary blades of two different types. Two were a hollow ground straight section like a mini Rolls blade ( and which Waits confusingly calls a "wedge blade") and the other two were a flat blade inserted into a seperate spine, like a mini frameback.
One of the mini framebacks was NOS and sharp right out of the wrapper, but both the hollow ground blades were dull and one had bad micropitting so that the edge crumbled.
Having got such good results from the Rolls razor taking the blade through a honing progression and then pasting the strop with ferric oxide, I wondered if the process would work as well for the Empire with the good hollow ground blade.
There are several threads on rehoning Wilkinson blades, and most suggest taping the spine.
These blades are clearly machined, and their initial bevel angle is different from that produced by laying the spine flat on the hone so I reset the bevel on a coarse synthetic to begin with then took the blade through a progression of slates.
Because I chose not to use any tape, and because that Wilkinson steel is hard and durable,setting the bevel took a long time and resulted in some spinewear but the blade took a great edge.
I pasted the supplied strop with ferric oxide (which had worked brilliantly with the Rolls) and, using the superb built in stropping mechanism, stropped the blade.
The result was really really good. Although the Empire looks clunky,it's powerful and smooth like the FaTip of SEs, so I dialled it up to maximum aggression. The blade was very sharp and very smooth and I got a fantastic DFS+ shave - everything that's good about straights and everything that's good about safeties in one razor.
And (unlike Durham Duplex and Rolls) the stropping mechanism is almost as convenient as straights since the blade doesn't have to be removed.
So how long will the blade stay sharp just on ferric oxide, and will this method also keep the mini frameback and modded GEM blades sharp?
We're going to find out
Wilkinson Empire, welcome to the 21st century!
When my set arrived it came with four old proprietary blades of two different types. Two were a hollow ground straight section like a mini Rolls blade ( and which Waits confusingly calls a "wedge blade") and the other two were a flat blade inserted into a seperate spine, like a mini frameback.
One of the mini framebacks was NOS and sharp right out of the wrapper, but both the hollow ground blades were dull and one had bad micropitting so that the edge crumbled.
Having got such good results from the Rolls razor taking the blade through a honing progression and then pasting the strop with ferric oxide, I wondered if the process would work as well for the Empire with the good hollow ground blade.
There are several threads on rehoning Wilkinson blades, and most suggest taping the spine.
These blades are clearly machined, and their initial bevel angle is different from that produced by laying the spine flat on the hone so I reset the bevel on a coarse synthetic to begin with then took the blade through a progression of slates.
Because I chose not to use any tape, and because that Wilkinson steel is hard and durable,setting the bevel took a long time and resulted in some spinewear but the blade took a great edge.
I pasted the supplied strop with ferric oxide (which had worked brilliantly with the Rolls) and, using the superb built in stropping mechanism, stropped the blade.
The result was really really good. Although the Empire looks clunky,it's powerful and smooth like the FaTip of SEs, so I dialled it up to maximum aggression. The blade was very sharp and very smooth and I got a fantastic DFS+ shave - everything that's good about straights and everything that's good about safeties in one razor.
And (unlike Durham Duplex and Rolls) the stropping mechanism is almost as convenient as straights since the blade doesn't have to be removed.
So how long will the blade stay sharp just on ferric oxide, and will this method also keep the mini frameback and modded GEM blades sharp?
We're going to find out
Wilkinson Empire, welcome to the 21st century!
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