So I'm brand new to the world of straight razor shaving. I finally got my first razor, hone (norton 4k/8k), strop, etc., etc. . . . anyway, I bought this vintage razor from ebay and I guess you could say I'm starting from the ground up. It's a Wade & Butcher "the celebrated, extra hollow ground" razor (looks real old).

It definitely needed some work, but I've run into a few problems along the way. I've searched online, read articles, and watched youtube videos to no avail. My first issue is that on one side of the spine, it is not flat and you can tell there has been some uneven hone wear. When I lay the other side of the blade on the hone, it appears to seat properly with the spine and bevel making contact from heel to toe. The bad side will lay flat at the toe, but the heel is raised up and doesn't make contact unless I slightly raise the blade onto the bevel (which in turn, lifts the toe portion of the spine and requires me to put pressure).

I have honed away at this thing for hours on the norton 4k stone and I have no idea how to tell if I'm overhoning. The bevel has a slight smile where the blade is a bit wider just in front of the middle portion. I watched a few video seminars where the instructors advised most vintage (ebay especially) blades should have a fresh bevel set in on them when you get them for the first time. I guess I might have achieved this, because I can see where my honing has removed the metal and now the edge is shinny and new.

After using the paintbrush method at first (before I realized that might not be the best method for this blade) to an "x stroke" pattern, the bevel is nice and sharp at the widest point of the blade, but the heel and toe are dull. This is very disturbing to me because I don't want to keep going and end up overhoning and losing the sharp part. I really just want to take the spine to a bench grinder and level it out from heel to toe! Can someone please help me out here?! If you do overhone, how do you get it sharp again? I read somewhere that if you pull the blade backwards (like the method used for stroping) it would reset it. No one said how many strokes that takes either. What if I just took the whole thing and laid it flat against the side of the bench grinder stone until it was even?! LOL . . . seriously, I'm so frustrated. Thanks in advance!