Thread: Wedge Razors

I have a couple of Wedge Razors, and although I love my two Dovo full hollows and they give a superlative shave, the Wedges made by Joseph Rogers of Sheffield England are fantastic, I cant put my finger on why but the shave is very comfortable and close and I feel very confident with shaving with it, also having very dense dark bleared (blue when shaved) the JRs glide through with the extra weight in the blade, the temper seems to be perfect for me, with plenty of feedback for a wedge, its like they did something to them in the tempering that a lost art, maybe there not perfect and that makes the difference, but anyway my Question.

Question::I know this has probably been done but do you strop and hone a wedge the same way? Or (going against what I ranted about in another post) is this an ideal chance for using tape? I have not determined quite yet if the Rodgers are true wedges or if they have the tiniest of hollowing to them.

I read some place (maybe here, maybe on the web) at some point that wedges were, (and i cant remember which it was) either called “Velvet knives” or were sharpened on “velvet knives” What’s that all about? anybody know the answer? Or were they just sharpened on a leather strop?

I have been stropping one as normal and it seems to work fine, except the strop seems to take a bit of a battering, it’s a Dovo canvas/leather strop (and I absolutely love it although its got a few repairs).

You strop them the same way as you would any other razor.

In terms of honing, a true wedge is usually taped just to raise the face of the blade up off the hone and avoid the need to remove massive amounts of steel to get an edge established. A true wedge lying flat on the hone will have full contact with the full face of the blade.

Near wedges dont need to be taped as they are already hollowed slightly, and only the spine and bevel touch the hone. Though if the razor has a fair amount of spine wear, you'll probably find that taping helps.

That said, I actually tape all my razors with one layer of tape, so for me its just business as usual when I hone a wedge. I find that tape prevents spine wear, which I think is unattractive, and helps keep the bevel small so I tape every razor I own.

Good luck and keep us posted!

You do not need tape for stropping wedges & 1/4 hollow razors whether honed with tape or not...Unless you used 5 or more layers of tape
And why are you battering your strop ?