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

I submit that the "Beautiful" old razor ain't a Wedge

Yeah also quite a few of the BH inserts talk about clean and flat hones


I just don't see the concave hone theory, just don't,,, don't see many of the true razor stones that have much concavity either in comparison to all that are flat or near flat..

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I just don't see the concave hone theory, just don't,,, don't see many of the true razor stones that have much concavity either in comparison to all that are flat or near flat..

Perret describes how hones tend to become cupped and recommends ways how to correct cupping. Those days they did not have lapping stones like we have so he recommends using a pumice and rubbing 2 hones together until you can no longer see light shine between the hone and the rubbing stone when you lay the one on top of the other.

Here in the Ozarks I have been told by a few old time carpenters that the used to get their Arkansas stones flattened by going to a miller and grinding them true on the large sandstone grist mill wheels from time to time .perhaps barbers did this also at times,who can say? Cheers.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I submit that the "Beautiful" old razor ain't a Wedge

Yeah also quite a few of the BH inserts talk about clean and flat hones


I just don't see the concave hone theory, just don't,,, don't see many of the true razor stones that have much concavity either in comparison to all that are flat or near flat..

Originally Posted by gssixgun

First lets define a wedge, as any heavy bladed 1/4 hollow or less old razor....

I have been doing my fair share of these as of late and have noticed some things, and wanted to see if anyone else has come to the same or other conclusions...

Almost, every one has to have a huge re-bevel set to what we (SRP) consider shave ready... The original bevels are much much smaller and steeper... This has led me to some therories...
I think when the original bevel were done, the cutler used a cheater strip of metal, something like a faux frameback to set the steep bevel and that the edges were then sharpened on a pasted loom style strop set slightly looser then what we consider optimal.... This would explain the small, steep, rounded, bevel that I am finding on these razors.... what do you guys think?????

Your above statement is the standard I would hold to be a good definition, and my wedge easily falls into that category. The elusive 100% full wedge is not really that much different when facing a hone challenge. Both the 90-95% defined wedge, your 1/4 as defined or the 100% as defined wedge suffer the same fate when honed on flat stones. You tape, and hone, re-tape and hone, the tape wears out, you make a spine guard, the bevels distort, the edge has wear and an ever increasing bevel width, the spine never wears out so the geometry spine/bevel ratio changes with each honing.

It has always been a common dialog that when honing, the spine wears as the edge wears so the spine/bevel ratio remains even, and that this is the design that the razor maker had in mind with the factory grind for future honing on flat stones. Taping distorts this progression, and we all admit that tape is to preserve the "new" look of the spine when honing someone else’s razor, or your own cherished one. The same problems occur with honing taped wedges, the ratio is one, tape residue, lack of stone feedback, the resulting steeper bevel, etc,

Of course 3M created black tape in the 50s, that is 1950s, not 1850s, and tape has allowed a lot of creative honing techniques to develop. The original question by Kees was "How did barbers hone a wedge in the olden days" and so far the answers have been something like this: spine lifted manually, lots of folks came around to hone stuff for you, slack strop (not really honing).

To learn to manually lift a spine like Bob suggested could work, and probably a lot of fellow resorted to this technique, but this again leads to ever and ever steeper bevels over the life of the razor because the spine always stays the same thickness. And can you imagine trying to hone out a chip while, actually with your thumb or whatever is lifting the spine for an hour or two.

Those fellows going around in carts honing is fine, depending on if they have decent stones and they come around regular enough. Still you will have to strop and are you doing refresh honing yourself. If you are you have your own stone, so why pay the guys in carts.

You all know what I am leading up to, concave stones.

Post #6 from Some thoughts on how wedges were honed in the day.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

I see a lot of spine wear on those old wedges. Maybe the bevels are just rounded through age and corrosion? Heavy pasted strop usage?

I also remember having seen some old hones on ebay that were seriously dished out in the middle. maybe such a curved hone would explain a steeper bevel angle

Post #7, same thread
[QUOTE=gssixgun;297394]Hmmmm good point Lee I have seen those too

I haven't ever seen one Kevin except for the detachable blade razors, that's what made me think of it..[/QUOTE]

Kees paraphrased the French cutler in,

Originally Posted by Kees

On page 8 of Pogonotomie ou l'art d'apprendre à se raser soi-même Perret describes the importance of an entirely flat hone and how to achieve it.

This guy was way ahead of is time if he is the inventor of the modern hollow grind. And I respect his attention to the detail of the importance of flat stones for hollow ground razors. And,

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I submit that the "Beautiful" old razor ain't a Wedge

Yeah also quite a few of the BH inserts talk about clean and flat hones


I just don't see the concave hone theory, just don't,,, don't see many of the true razor stones that have much concavity either in comparison to all that are flat or near flat..

I myself have bought a dozen of so "used" Arkansas stones over the years, 10 of those were dished to some degree when compared to a straight edge and some were dramatically dished. Nearly all of the used synthetics, Coticules and used Jnats I have bought over the years were too. I know the mechanists are taught to lap their stones, and many other crafts support the flat method and have so in modern times. For a country town barber in Hootsville USA or a barber is a village in Spain, England or Turkey or any where else in the world during the WEDGE ERA of 1700 to 1840, flatness was probably not an issue or even a topic. This SRP forum is a topic driven vehicle. For the average guy who has a Norton in is garage for his knives and lawnmower blades, flat hones is not topic. For the barber in Japan in 1810 who learned his craft from his father, flatness may have been an issue, probably not. For the barber in New York City in 1810 who learned his trade from his father, maybe/probably not.

If they didn't care, than by default their stones were most likely dished. And were are these barber manuals, and from what dates?

My point is that,

I am writing this and everyone who is reading this (except for two guys that I know of) has not experienced what I have, and that is using a purposely designed concave hone on wedge razors. It is one way to actually hone a wedge razor with regular results that does not ruin the razors spine or bevel, and one way that fully explains why unadulterated antique wedges in historic condition show only average wear to the spines and bevels.

Black tape, yes. Concave stones, yes. Metal or Bic pen sleeves, yes. For the average isolated barber in 1765, probably only the concave stones is the most likely supposition.
edit: manually lifting the spine, yes. "probably only the concave stones and manually lifting the spine are the most likely suppostions for the average barber between 1700 & 1840. end edit.
Alex

Don't forget that "...the spine wears as the bevel wears..." is not strictly true for old razors.

The spine was a lot thicker than the bevel and sometimes (most times in my experience) the spine and tang are a lot softer than the thin blade - something to do with how they tempered the blades.

In the above example the spine wears quicker than the bevel/blade, so some taping is often recommended to restore the original angle.

As for using dished hones, I have never heard of such nonsense. I have read about it with single japanese hones which use nagura stones to change the effective fineness of the hone, but we are talking about one stone and the same blade, also I don't think we used Japanese stones in the period under discussion.

Lapping (which essentially means 'grinding') was well understood by this time - Copernicus ground lenses in the 1600s and Newton made telescopes from flat and curved lenses he made himself. So there was no reason not to have a flat hone, other than idiosyncratic reasons.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Don't forget that... ...Copernicus ground lenses in the 1600s and Newton made telescopes...
Neil

Point of OCD history order, please. Copernicus, more than 100 years before Galileo, theorized the condition of the solar system but saw it only in his math and mind; Galileo, I believe, was first to analyze and record celestial by telescope. He was right in there with Kepler and van Leeuvenhouk, both of whom were busy improving early lenses to develop or improve both refracting telescopes and the sciences of microscopy.

According to lens grinding art of the time, making a very uniform dished, convex or concave stone in 1600 shouldn't have been any problem.

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Don't forget that "...the spine wears as the bevel wears..." is not strictly true for old razors.

The spine was a lot thicker than the bevel and sometimes (most times in my experience) the spine and tang are a lot softer than the thin blade - something to do with how they tempered the blades.

In the above example the spine wears quicker than the bevel/blade, so some taping is often recommended to restore the original angle.


Lapping (which essentially means 'grinding') was well understood by this time - Copernicus ground lenses in the 1600s and Newton made telescopes from flat and curved lenses he made himself. So there was no reason not to have a flat hone, other than idiosyncratic reasons.

Regards,
Neil

Perret describes both the process of regrinding a razor on a grindstone and the lapping of hones using pumice and a stone of the same material.

Originally Posted by MisterMoo

Point of OCD history order, please. Copernicus, more than 100 years before Galileo, theorized the condition of the solar system but saw it only in his math and mind; Galileo, I believe, was first to analyze and record celestial by telescope. He was right in there with Kepler and van Leeuvenhouk, both of whom were busy improving early lenses to develop or improve both refracting telescopes and the sciences of microscopy.

According to lens grinding art of the time, making a very uniform dished, convex or concave stone in 1600 shouldn't have been any problem.

You are quite correct - old age strikes again! Such a pity though, as I was especially interested in Copernicus, Tychoe Brahe and Kepler a long, long time ago.

I was also interested in Anton van Loevenhoek, too. His microscope lenses were produced by heating a cylindrical rod of glass in the middle, forming a small hairlike piece of glass, then snapping it apart. Re-heating the thin strand of glass made it flow back on itself leaving a sphere of glass -these were his tiny lenses, no grinding or lapping required. The technique was very simple - so simple that Loevenhoek would not reveal it to others preferring tbem to believe that he spent ages grinding and lapping them.

The first use of a 'proper' telescope was in the very early 1600s, but magnifying glass lenses were made in the 1200s and convex and concave spectacle lenses in the 1300s.

Regards,
Neil

About the concave stones that you find.
Concave and convex stones have been around for centuries and are commonly used in wood working for rounded gouges, chisels, and molding planes. Crown molding has been around since the Romans? Greeks? Earlier? I don't know how old it is, but it usually contains an ogee and cove which are curves. It is a heck of a lot easier to sharpen a curved blade on a curved stone instead of a flat stone.

About honing a wedge without tape.
You lift the spine about a fingernail thickness high off of the stone. It takes a little practice to learn the technique, but once you have the muscle memory it is to do. It's no different than holding a holding a pocket knife spine at 25 degrees off of a stone - once you learn it, it is not a problem.

I suppose that for wedge razors produced within the working lifetime of James Stodart (a famous razor maker, surgical implement maker and knife maker with a shop in London's Strand) that Stodart's own instructions should prove illuminating and echo what Cris has posted.

Born in 1760 and living until 1823, Stodart, friend and co-worker of the famous english chemist, natural philosopher and physicist Michael Faraday during his alloys of steel experiments, said that the razor was prepared in the normal way, but for the last stokes a 'greenstone' was used that was found in the streets of London (mainly cobbled, so this 'greenstone' is a mysterious stone, adamantine in nature and good for razors). OTT, but setts and cobblestones of the time were mixed - some were sedimentary and from the Pennines for example, some were igneous stones like granites and came from Cumbria and Ireland for example.

Whatever it was, it was used for the finishing or final stage of honing, in which Stodart says that it was "...used for the last few strokes of honing, during which the spine of the razor is raised slightly..." and tested by holding a piece of thin leather taut and dropping the blade on it - it was said to go noiselessly and cleanly through the leather.

Regards,
Neil