I picked up a Clauss 5/8 round point off ebay a few years ago. It looked rather NOS in the pictures and when it arrived, it again looked like it had never been used.

Putting it on the hone the other day, it seemed quite normal with the edge coming towards me, but when I flipped the razor to go the other way only half the edge was touching the stone!

After giving up on using the the X stroke to try and hone the whole edge and not succeding, I took a closer look at the spine of the blade. It was not warped, but rather there was a hump on the one side, about 3/4" from the tip that just made the razor near unhonable... or at least it was for me.

After a lot of head scratching, and almost ruining the edge with heavy body english on the hones... I decided to straighten it out on my DMT 320. No, it's not the ideal way, appearence wise, but the razor was never going to be usable in that condition, so I had at it. I suppose the "correct" solution would have been to fix the grind of the spine, but as I'm keeping the razor and it's a plain vanilla, with black synthetic scales, and nothing special kind of razor, I felt that I could live with the rather large "hone wear" on one side of the spine.

End result is that I'm currently trying to get the edge of the blade back in shape... it's close, but that toe really got bunged up from trying to hone it without fixing the rocking on that hump. The razor will be my backup razor for those times when everything else is dull, and I find myself short of time for honing... (not very likely as I plan to retire in the spring, but hey... I have to justify stuff somehow, right?)

I don't know who at Clauss ground this particular razor, but had I purchased it new from some store back in the 1950s, I would have taken it back for a refund/replacement... it really was bad!

On a more postive note, my Shapton Glass Stone holder arrived in my mailbox today.... I did not care for the price, but is sure is nice to hone on!

Regards

Kaptain "I'll show THAT spine who's boss..." Zero