Quote Originally Posted by gugi View Post
OK I'll post again and elaborate more on my original advice. First I'll start with a simple observation from this thread so far:

The less experience a member has with honing, the more willing they are to recommend OP tries to fix it himself.

Now, in principle there is nothing wrong to try honing, I actually think learning to hone on a blade with a chip is the best way to go, as it takes some time to get the chip out which is a helpful practice.

However, his chances of success are less than 1%. So...

What does he have to gain from an attempt:
- experience (it can be done on another razor)
- satisfaction upon success (same as the previous point)
- $20 or so

What are the negatives from going this way:
- time - a lot of it
- pain from the bad shaves - a lot of it
- doubt - with just two shaves he has no idea what to shoot for, so will he be getting bad shaves because he can't shave, or because he can't hone?
- more hone wear on the razor than necessary - it's a nice razor and most people like them to stay that way if possible. Even if it gets eventually fixed the steel that's gone while learning cannot be put back.

I think the negatives outweigh the positives by a large margin.
But, of course, everybody can make the call themselves.

I normally am trying to be 'nicer' but getting good advice is the first priority.

I don't know if everybody paid attention, but the razor has a visible chip! It means the chip needs to go out and a new bevel be set. This last part is where virtually all newbies fail, no matter how good they think they are.
This newb agrees 100%. Especially with the last part. I've sharpened over 100 razors now (well, not that many razors.... many were sharpened over and over again to practice), and I'm just now to where I can really set a nice bevel.

And one point that really has to be stressed: All newbs need to have a honemeister sharpened blade to compare their work to. It should be a mantra all newbs should have to repeat on a daily basis. Since the razor in question is the OP's only blade, he needs to have it sharpened and fixed by a honemeister so he has a benchmark again.

A high quality blade is just not one a guy should learn repair and honing on. You can grab a double arrow off of ebay for ten bucks. Buy one, put a chip in the blade, and go nuts learning to repair and hone.