Thread: How did barbers hone a wedge in the olden days?

They didn't. In the old days there were loads of folks who came around and would hone your stuff for a song. The barber would have probably done a quick touchup and that's it. Also few barbers used wedges. Hollow ground were the meat and potatoes razors. You would have to go really back probably to the 1880s and before to find barbers using wedges. Even in those days few did their own.

For in-between shaves they most likely used a slack strop pasted with rouge abrasive or lamp black. Both were easily obtainable.

Just my 2¢

What would lamp black do Randy ,,, or better yet, what is it?

Originally Posted by Hirlau

What would lamp black do Randy ,,, or better yet, what is it?

Lamp black is the soot that accumulates inside a kerosene lamp chiminey. There are other sources but this is the easiest one to make on your own. It is carbon with a few other impurities and very fine.

Lay a business card on the spine and edge and see if it actually has a "big wheel" grind.

Originally Posted by Hirlau

What would lamp black do Randy ,,, or better yet, what is it?

If you have an older Simpson brush the black in the writing is lampblack. That's just something they did.

They may have also used a dished hone without thinking too much about it. There's some evidence because of all the old dished hones we find. Alex Gilmore made a dished hone on purpose, and IIRC it had a radius of about 480mm but to the eye it just looked like a badly dished vintage hone. It was very symmetrical though as he ground the dish with a form.

Anyway, I did the math (trig actually) and found that it basically added a degree to the bevel angle, or about like a piece of tape, but voilà, no tape needed to add the degree. Wider blades a bit more, narrow blades a bit less.

Cheers, Steve

Not a new question LOL

This thread started 7 years ago and went on for quite some time, we learned a lot over the years but honestly the questions were never actually answered definitively...

BTW The difference in hardness question was answered way back then...


Enjoy the read

http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...honed-day.html

please show a pic!
i would LOVE to be given a GB anchor straight...
how about i take that off your hands and give you a W&B instead?

As far as lampblack is concerned, It is used in many products including refractory brick, rubber which can be as much as 15 to 20% lampblack per 400# batch in the mixer just to name a couple. Lampblack comes in numerous sized granules for different uses. Another use would be for the mfg. of printers ink and artist's pigments these two uses would require a finer grade of lampblack.

I'm just saying...............