Thread: High bevel angles, hard to hone razors

I have some pretty old razors, incidentally they seem unused and show no hone wear.

However, I found them hard to sharpen, with and without tape.

Then I calculated their bevel angles and all were above 20 degrees.
They're heavier grinds.

If the angle is too low, simple, add layers of tape, but too high?
Maybe it was more common to use those angles in the day.

Do I just keep honing them on the 1K until I make good contact over the entire edge? Without tape that is, so things wear down?

I'm fairly sure I honed such razors in the past without tape and things eventually worked out.

Tape isn't working on them and the angles will only get higher, so just checking in to ask how you go about honing those razors?

I figure it's just a matter of spending time on the 1K

I am always a bit suspicious about old razors that show no hone wear. In my experience many were problem razors that had issues and the original oner gave up on it and stuck it in a drawer.

I see that a lot with warped razors. Before I did anything drastic like grinding the spine, I would hone with just Kapton and see how it shaves. Make sure it is not warped and that you are not honing on a stabilizer.

Even old Gold Dollars with massive, warped spines will shave.

Some photos would help advise you.

Something is certainly up,
you can tell by feel that something is odd; the razor even wants to tip over on the edge while honing.

The spines and grind aren't perfect symmetric.
Some have irregular wear on the spine. too, so that adds to a wonky / wavy bevel.

Part of the edge - spine makes good contact, in other spots the edge doesn't touch the stone.

I can fix it by using narrow hones and take my time,
or focus honing on the outer side of the 1K, doing some sort of rolling x stroke.

But I'm wondering how important the bevel angle is for a good shave anyway?

I don't measure the bevel angle often, but am wondering what lower and upper limit degree make for a good shaving angle?

My older ones gravitate more towards a 20° and some later ones towards 15 - 18°.

I notice the ones between 15° - 18° to be very easy to hone, while all the other from 20° and up to cause a little trouble. But that might just be me.

I do not ever measure bevel angle and have never honed a razor that will not shave.

I doubt that folks were measuring angles in the early 1900’s. Bad uneven grinds and warps are another thing and I think are the cause of a lot of honing issues that the bevel angle get blamed for.

I hone warped razors in 3 parts. First establish that the razor has a warp or hollow by putting it on a flat surface. Hone the concave side in 2 parts, hone the heel with a rolling X, but keep the heel on the stone until halfway. Then hone the toe starting with half the heel off the stone. Ink the bevels so you can see where you are making contact.

Then blend the heel and toe by doing a rolling x where the heel comes off the stone at the beginning of the stroke and ends at the toe at the other end of the stone.

The convex side is honed with a rolling x but rolling up. The amount of rolling up or down depends on the razor and where you are removing ink, but it is generally very little.

Ink will quickly tell you what is going on at the edge. I use ink on every razor, it is not just a learning tool. Colored ink is much easier to see.

Gotcha, big thanks, really appreciate the feedback, this will surely help!

Originally Posted by TristanLudlow

I have some pretty old razors, incidentally they seem unused and show no hone wear.

However, I found them hard to sharpen, with and without tape.

Then I calculated their bevel angles and all were above 20 degrees.
They're heavier grinds.

If the angle is too low, simple, add layers of tape, but too high?
Maybe it was more common to use those angles in the day.

Do I just keep honing them on the 1K until I make good contact over the entire edge? Without tape that is, so things wear down?

I'm fairly sure I honed such razors in the past without tape and things eventually worked out.

Tape isn't working on them and the angles will only get higher, so just checking in to ask how you go about honing those razors?

I figure it's just a matter of spending time on the 1K

Yeah, that approach is valid. You do have to have a good bevel and eventually you ought to get one, if you just keep at it. But do you really want to start at 1k? Judgement call, but you might want to start out with something much more coarse. If a lot of steel has to come off, then save some of the wear you would put on the 1k, by starting at 320 or so. Even coarser? Up to you, but remember the coarser you go, the bigger the chips, and the more time you will spend removing them as you move up in grit. If your goal is a more acute bevel angle, then obviously no matter how you normally feel about it, tape on the spine is exactly diametrically oppositely wrong.

If you wanna play this game, I suggest you set aside all of those razors except one to be the sacrificial lab rat.

A 20° razor can be made to shave. It won't be a spectacular shaver but it can shave. I have shaved with a ZY430 though it ain't nothing to write home about. To an extent, you can make up for a very obtuse angle with a very fine edge treatment such as the pasted balsa progression that I document on my website. An ordinary 12k synthetic edge really needs a bit of help when it is applied to a really fat bevel. If you are into naturals you might experiment with a really hard Jnat and a thoroughly broken down, very thin slurry, gradually diluting to pure running water. Then a few dozen extremely light laps with dish soap on the clean stone.

Regrinding is a touchy subject. Is it even worth all the extra work? If the razor is that valuable, do you really want to diddle with it? Up to you. Been there, done that. It can be done, even with fairly primitive and basic gear, but that's an awful lot of work when you can just buy a nice vintage with good geometry for $20 to $75. How much is your time worth?

If OTOH you are looking for a hobby activity, you might pick out a likely candidate and just hone, on somehting coarse, heavy on the spine, maybe after relieving the grind a bit at the shoulder. You will likely end up with a wedge or near wedge, and a very very worn stone. Sandpaper to the rescue. Save your stones and do all the heavy lifting on red resin type wet/dry, secured to your lapping plate with spray adhesive. What grit? Up to you. I Have started at 60 grit but you are gonna end up with a lot of chips that will have to hone out at some point, so around 220 is more reasonable. Depends on how much steel is coming off. Judgement call. Before you reach your geometry and bevel goal, you should already be bumping up the grit so you aren't struggling for days at the 1k level to clean everything up. But before actually setting the bevel and calling it set, do you want this to be a full wedge razor, or do you want it hollowground? Putting a good hollowgrind on a razor requires a degree of craftsmanship, especially with less than ideal equipment for it. I have done this with a jig, a Dremel with sanding drums, and then hand sanding. I have also used the nose roller on a belt sander clamped upside down in my bench vise. And I have trashed a LOT of razors doing this LOL!!! How many can you afford to sacrifice? A full wedge is a much easier grind to manage. You want to create a fairly acute overall bevel angle, so that you can apply a compound bevel that is reasonable and effective for shaving.

In doing all that, you are essentially creating a razor using pre-hardened steel via stock removal. Just sayin. Most of us don't have time for that.

I rarely hone a razor without checking the bevel angle.

Ensuring the razor's cutting edge has the lowest possible effective angle that it will hold without issue is always a worthwhile endeavor. This can be done a few ways and if done so that the bevel itself has small hollow grind it will be more comfortable at a given angle than if flat. Unfortunately if effective angle is beyond 20° the razor will quite likely need regrinding to gain sufficient hollowing behind the edge to be sufficiently flexible. We do not use axes to shave because of their mass and cutting angle and we do not use scalpels to shave because of their inflexibility.