Help educate me

[steve]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Straight-Razor-D...QQcmdZViewItem

The seller says "never sharpened" but I think the spine shows excessive hone wear.

Am I right or not? I thought this might be a good chance for someone to help me hone my visual diagnostic abilities.

[JMS]

Forget about the spine, look at the toe

[steve]

Forget about the spine, look at the toe

I saw that too, it's a new type of razor called a clubed foot razor

[JMS]

Clever boy

[bwknight]

wow.... someone paid $48.26 for that...

[JMS]

I wouldn't expect anything less for a clubed foot razor!!

[Razorburne]

As I am new to this, I thought this was a brilliant threat to start to get feedback from the experienced guys on the forum...it helps learning this stuff easier.

From the picture, it almost seems like someone was doing exactly what Lynn says not to do in his DVD - do NOT use two hands to hone - holding the toe-end down with the second hand probably applied ill-advised and uneven pressure, causing the blade to wear unevenly.

Does this sound right?

[bwknight]

I would guess someone did that with a belt sander, not a regular hone, haha.

[JoshEarl]

Somehow that razor was sharpened--a LOT--with too much pressure on the toe. I actually see this much more often than I see razors with a frown or other improper wear.

Does anyone have a theory about this? I'd assume most of these were sharpened on barber hones, and conventional wisdom suggests that a narrow hone like a barber hone is more likely to produce a frown. But I've only had to work out a few frowns, and I see these tapered razors all the time.

Josh

[Scrapyard Ape]

Somehow that razor was sharpened--a LOT--with too much pressure on the toe. I actually see this much more often than I see razors with a frown or other improper wear.

Does anyone have a theory about this? I'd assume most of these were sharpened on barber hones, and conventional wisdom suggests that a narrow hone like a barber hone is more likely to produce a frown. But I've only had to work out a few frowns, and I see these tapered razors all the time.

Josh

I think perhaps the people doing the honing were like myself. You see... I suck at it. More specifically, whenever I have tried to hone a razor, I end up with the heel nice and sharp, but the toe nice and not sharp. In an effort to compensate, I'd spend more time trying to hone the toe. I'm sure that if I continued, my razors would look just as the above and maybe worse. Thankfully I've learned how to get the perfect edge: Have someone that knows how do it for me.