Thread: Some thoughts on how wedges were honed in the day...

My plan was to use the magic marker test and try and get as close to accurate as possible that way...

My guess is going to be that I stick my thumb under the spine and the angle is about dead on

Has anyone seen this link? It metions the honing of microtome knives in which a cylinder of metal with a lengthwise split in it was slipped over the spine, much as theorised above. The diameter of the cylinder determines the amount of bevel.

Regards,
Neil

Well, I have one of those sets. The cylinder is a very thin, flexes a bit and a slot is cut lengthwise for the full length of the cylinder. It slides over the spine of the microtome and provides a constant angle while honing.

The microtome is usually flat on one side and concave on the other. The ones that I have are a true wedge with no concave grind at all. I believe the ones that I have are made from stainless steel, tempered hard, and are a real PITA to hone. DMT hones anyone?

Originally Posted by randydance062449

The microtome is usually flat on one side and concave on the other. The ones that I have are a true wedge with no concave grind at all. I believe the ones that I have are made from stainless steel, tempered hard, and are a real PITA to hone. DMT hones anyone?

I have a Puma microtome and yes it is a hard stainless. In case you missed it Randy, here is a thread on what I did with mine. Shaves well even if it is no longer usable for what it was made for. I would rather have it to shave with. Ain't done any sectioning of tissue samples lately. The bevel on the wedge side ended up being about 1 centimeter. The hollow side slightly less. Had I used four layers of tape on the wedge side it might have been equal on either side.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

OK Gents I have one, Grottolord / Mike sent a huge A$$ meat chopper to hone out and this has the old bevel intact and obviously it was being used... I will post pics on this one, and I have Mike's permission to take my time and do many of the tests so I can figure out what sort of angle this edge was originally done at.... stay tuned...

Still tuned here.
Only static so far...


I am curious though.

Bart.

Reviving this old thread, instead of starting a whole new one...

This started almost 3 years ago, since then many Wedges/Oldies have come and gone...
I got to thinking about this again recently because I was working on a few old "Wedges", and probably 80% of them had very steep original bevels and virtually no spine wear...

Now after I do a restore, I often start cutting a bevel with 3 pieces of tape first, to get an idea of what is going on, before I start ripping steel off these old gals... Near every single time the bevel is steeper than 3 layers of tape, again with little hone wear on the spine... Now I have also honed some near NOS heavy bladed razors that have little tiny bevels to with just my standard 1 layer of tape to protect the spine...I started having the idea that it really was just a ton of spine wear that caused the wide bevels, now recently I am thinking again there is something missing...

The more blades I have looked at over the last few years the more I think there is a missing piece to this puzzle...

Could it be something easy like these honing clips for knives



Or perhaps something more mundane like lifting the spine while rolling off a barbers hone, which would also explain so many worn out toes

Or perhaps that some of these were sharpened using a wheel grinder then tweaked in after

Some day I am going to sit back and do a ton of testing has anyone tried anything different on these other then the Rolling X and the Heel Forward stroke...

Interesting thread! I don't know really anything about it, as I only have one wedge that I've had for about 3 years. I got this wedge in a lot with broken scales. I cleaned the blade up, and haven't touched it since. If you need a candidate for testing I was actually planning on commissioning a set of scales and resto on it.....

Originally Posted by gssixgun

has anyone tried anything different on these other then the Rolling X and the Heel Forward stroke...

Here is my stress free way of honing wedges. Using this method you do not have to worry about Rolling X's, Heel forward strokes, or warped spines.

1) Pour yourself a glass of bourbon
2) Login to paypal.com
3) Send $20 to your favorite honemeister
4) Carefully package razor and print a shipping label.
5) Drink whiskey and wait
6)...
7) Shave with your wedge razor.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Reviving this old thread, instead of starting a whole new one...




Or perhaps that some of these were sharpened using a wheel grinder then tweaked in after

Some day I am going to sit back and do a ton of testing has anyone tried anything different on these other then the Rolling X and the Heel Forward stroke...

I have reground wedges with both 10" wheels and 6" wheels. The result is a small bevel that is relatively quick and easy to sharpen. I think many wedges were sent back to cutlers or in some cases an above average street grinder. The fact that very few spine devices have turned up leads me to believe that they were for the most part simply reground as needed.
As razors evolved and became more hollowed regrinds became less ans less frequent which leaves us in the present time sctatching our heads.

When I was a kid back in the '80s, my grandfather once showed me how he honed his. He already stopped using straights probably about 10 years prior (he was about 86 at this point) but I think he was showing me to try to pass some knowledge along... I wish I wasn't so young at the time so I could have learned more! It was a thin coti probably only 25mm wide and dished in the middle... he did not lay the razor down flat on its spine, a lot of this was by feel. He was an active straight shaver from about 1915 through the 70's.