Thread: How unrealistic would it be to try and restore this razor by myself?

Welcome to SRP. I tried to upload some of your photos for reference but it won't let me...
From what I can see, I the right hands your razor can be honed easy enough.
From not using tape and using excessive pressure there is some hone wear to the spine, the stabilizer has been honed on which causes the bevel to lift so extra pressure has been used for the bevel to make contact which causes a wide uneven bevel. Don't worry your not the first and certainly not the last to do this.

Personally I'd send it to a pro honer from SRP so at least you have a benchmark to go by.

If you want to hone yourself read everything in the SRP library. Then lap your 1k to ensure its flat with some 600g wet and dry. Take a sharpie and ink the edge. Tape the spine. With the blade flat at 45 degrees and the heel/stabilizer off the hone do an X stroke up and down the hone. Look at the bevel, you will see where the sharpie has come off. If it's all off repeat until the two sides of the bevel are complete. If you look down the bevel under light you should see no sparkles, if there is it means the bevels not formed properly. Once it is carry on with your 4k and 8k removing all previous stria.

Job done.

Sounds easy enough but it can be a right pain in the ....

I haven't seen the pictures either but from the description from others it sounds like you probably need a heel correction. It's very common for the stabilizer to get in the way of honing even with brand new razors, even high-end ones. Now, you can work around it by just letting it (stabilizer) sit off the edge of the stone but the easier and better way to do it is to do a heel correction which you should be able to do yourself if you have a diamond plate or file. Marty/Euclid440 has a good tutorial on it which you can find in a search but in short find a coin that is about the same width as the blade from spine to edge and place it on top of the blade with it even with the spine, the edge, and the heel and take a sharpie and mark a line around the coin at the heel. Then use the diamond plate or a diamond file and shape it with very light strokes in the direction of the edge to bring it to that shape. It shouldn't take more than a few light strokes. Don't go across because you can snap pieces off of the heel doing that. Ask me how I know. We've all made mistakes. This process gets the stabilizer out of the way by bringing the heel end of the edge further forward and the edge end of the stabilizer back some toward the spine. It's much easier to conceptualize when you see the pictures. With some experience you don't even need the coin you can just do it by eye. From what others are saying that may be the biggest problem you're having. This is all rather academic though since you don't really have enough honing experience to deal with either of these issues yet. It's fine you will but it's a good idea to get at least one other razor that is straight with an even bevel to work with as others have said. That way you're learning with as few complications as possible.
No it's in fact, PM me your address and I'll send you one. If you try to buy one as a beginner you won't know what to look for and if you buy it on eBay you won't know until you get it even if you do. I've got lots of razors and I'm happy to send you one with a good straight spine and edge and an even bevel. I leave in hone it up dead keen for you so that you can see what it needs to be like when it's done. Hopefully you're in North America somewhere.

Hi

I am Glen aka gssixgun

I have now learned I can do a Zoom meeting from the ranch WOOOOOOOhoooo technology

You can watch the JaNorton vids and read the JaNorton thread I did years ago for tones of info

We can't do Meetups right now with the plague but if you want to try some Zoom instruction it is the next best thing..

Fire me a PM and we can set it up

I looked at your Razor pics, it isn't that bad... Really you just need a little help

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

Oh yea, the best sharpener in town, we hear that all the time, he’s a knife guy so no he ain’t who you want. Just man up and get one of the razor guys here to do it, learn how to strop and shave. Hell till then you don’t even know what a shave ready razor is

I'm actually not falling for marketing when I say this, the guy actually does not market at all and does all the work silently out of his garage, he has word of mouth recognition around the whole city, I didn't even find out he lived near my until I spoke to someone across my city and he told me to go to him. He legitimately is the best sharpener in the city when it comes to knives and clippers and such, just not so much razors. He's 92 now I think too so he's losing his touch now, probably bad eyesight.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

snip

When I get Christmas break I might take you up on this. For now it seems there is so much content to read up on and look at that I should be more than occupied just learning the basics before I really take a shot at this one I have. I'll make sure you watch your videos.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

No it's in fact, PM me your address and I'll send you one. If you try to buy one as a beginner you won't know what to look for and if you buy it on eBay you won't know until you get it even if you do. I've got lots of razors and I'm happy to send you one with a good straight spine and edge and an even bevel. I leave in hone it up dead keen for you so that you can see what it needs to be like when it's done. Hopefully you're in North America somewhere.

I'm in Winnipeg, Canada, I'll be glad to buy one off of you if the shipping cost isn't super excessive (sometimes shipping costs to Canada from America are unreasonable).

Out of curiosity though, what is really the main point of having the good razor? Just comparison? I can imagine the utility of having a good properly honed razor to look at but I don't really see how I would learn honing technique on a razor that is already in great shape unless I intentionally blunt it or something.

By the way if anyone happens to know a good honer in Winnipeg please point them out to me, I made some phonecalls and put out a craigslist ad looking for one and so far the only person I have heard of is the guy who lives down the block from me (even on badger and blade he's the only one who comes up in my city.

Managed to upload one of your pics so we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

What Tc was saying is your knife guy maybe the best honer for sharpening knives but that doesn't mean he can hone a razor. Many a razor has been deformed by a knife honer.

Definitely take Glen up on his offer.

Originally Posted by markbignosekelly

Managed to upload one of your pics so we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

What Tc was saying is your knife guy maybe the best honer for sharpening knives but that doesn't mean he can hone a razor. Many a razor has been deformed by a knife honer.

Definitely take Glen up on his offer.

Will do. That bevel looks brutal to me the way the light is bending down the edge of the blade like that. Hopefully I can eventually clean that up.

Image dump incoming. I just realized I have the entire blade stabilizer included sitting on the stone in every single picture where I'm trying to demonstrate the warp of the blade (I don't hone like that though), is it supposed to be sitting flat with the stabilizer or is the stabilizer simply never supposed to touch the hone at all really?















Just realized I had my thumb on the spine for every single picture of the blade sitting flat too. I'll take some better pictures next time I attempt to hone it.

Theres few razors that will ever sit perfectly flat on the hone, keep the stabilizer off the hone, use a heel forward X stroke, slightly torque the heel edge so it will sit flat on the hone, as you execute the stroke shift the pressure so the toe edge of the razor sits flat on the hone. Dont over think it, It really just comes down to practice. After a few times you'll do it without thinking.

To put yours into perspective heres my R Saito.
It t ain't ever going to sit flat on the hone.

Originally Posted by markbignosekelly

Theres few razors that will ever sit perfectly flat on the hone, keep the stabilizer off the hone, use a heel forward X stroke, slightly torque the heel edge so it will sit flat on the hone, as you execute the stroke shift the pressure so the toe edge of the razor sits flat on the hone. Dont over think it, It really just comes down to practice. After a few times you'll do it without thinking.

To put yours into perspective heres my R Saito.
It t ain't ever going to sit flat on the hone.

Bro I thought that was a Salvador Dali painting of a straight razor before I saw that it's real.