Thread: Wedge

I often see bevels like this on old razors of this type, but the reason is usually obvious. What I mean by that is that the spine is slightly warped, the grind is a bit out, or some sort of poor practice in the past has resulted in more spine wear than wear at the bevel.

This one does not seem to have any of those problems. The spine is square in section, so the wear should be at the lower edge that meets the hollow grind (its not a wedge) which means that there shouldbe a prominent facet there and that the makers name should be partly obliterated. It has neither of those things. So the spine is not too thin. Add to that the fact that it has been honed with tape and we have the possility that the spine is fractionally thicker, so the bevel should be correspondingly thinner.

The bevel seems quite even on both sides, so kinking of the spine has not caused this. However, it does look as if the. Evel gets progressively wider from heel to tip. So more timehas been taken on the curve of the tip, which leads to diminishing returns, because the thickness of the blde gets thicker in section as tou get closer to the tip, which makes the bevel wider.

A wider width of blade has the same effect as a thinner spine, ie a wide bevel, wnereas a shorter blade width would make for a thinner bevel because in effect it elevates the angle of honing. So it is unlikely that chips of any importance have been honed out.

So the honer, in my opinion, is not to blame - it is probably due to a peculiarity of the grind (like bellying out too far in front of the bevel), the forger or grinder making the spine fractionally to narrow along with the tip having to be over-honed in the past due to the above.

Regards,
Neil