Thread: Bevel set, shave ready, shave!

Well I did it. Had six old razors which required attention and managed to reset a bevel on all of them and then honed/stropped to shave ready. (I know they're shave ready cos I've used them and they were great!)

However! Not without some head scratching and wood splinters in the fingers.

I found that ALL of them required to be taped and one of then even needed 3 layers !

I found that I didn't seem to be getting anywhere with any of them until I put some tape on.

Any comments welcome dudes cos I'm wingin it a bit here!

PS. I used Norton 4k/8k, Naniwa 10, then strop with green oxide, rough then smooth.

Tape or no tape, its a matter of how thick you want your bevel. Most wedges require more tape to get a bevel going. Once bevels are set, its smooth grinding from there.

I always use at least one layer of tape. As you are setting your bevel with a 4K I am guessing that they were being re sharpened. Without pictures it is really hard to focus on any one razor. I am also going to guess that the razor you used three layers of tape on is a near wedge. If you want really great feed back you might want to show a picture of a razor, then a blade only picture and give some information on what you did to get that one shave ready. If you are getting a really great shave from all of them they have passed the shave test, and really that is the ultimate. I find it very valuable to keep razors around that are honed by others as a benchmarks.

Yeah, unless they were wedges, the razors did not "need" tape.

Regardless, a win is a win and you made them into shavers so you won. If you keep at this, you will be shocked at how much better your edges can get as your honing keeps getting better.

Just a thought. If you only had the 4k for bevel setting then the tape might not have been needed but it focused the honing to the edge and greatly decreased to time it took especially if it was a harder steel. Any way congrats and happy shaving

My guess would be that they were previously honed with tape so the bevel angle would have been slightly higher than when the tape was removed.
I suspect that with more time you may have set a bevel without tape. However if what you have done worked it worked

If your working on old dull razors you may want to invest in a good 1K. I started out trying to set bevels on eBay specials with a Norton 4K and it was very discouraging(took forever). My guess is you need a good bevel setter, not more tape.

Ok that's a thought, i'll probably do that.

I'd rather not use the tape if possible but I really didn't seem to be getting anywhere with them and I was getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress so tried the tape.

I'll take on board all the comments. Thanks everybody.

Originally Posted by BeJay

If your working on old dull razors you may want to invest in a good 1K. I started out trying to set bevels on eBay specials with a Norton 4K and it was very discouraging(took forever). My guess is you need a good bevel setter, not more tape.