honing nicks

I had a nice, pleasant shave last night, and as I was rinsing the blade in the sink, I accidentally got a little aggresive and banged the very corner of the edge against the sink and chipped the blade. I was pissed. I'm still pissed. Are there any tricks to honing out tiny nicks in the blade, or do I just hit the hones as normal? The nick is far enough on the corner that it doesn't affect shaving at all, and I almost decided to just ignore it until I noticed that it is scuffing up my strop ever so slightly. I guess I need to fix it for the strop's sake, if not the razor's sake.

Do you have a digital camera that you can take and post a picture of it? Exact location will determine the solution.

The nick is on the extreme tip of the blade, and it is quite small. I do have a camera and can try and take a picture.

Do you have a 1000 grit stone? If so, that's the best way I've found to take nicks out. Just go slow...it'll work out in time.

Hey Joe, I can see the inside of yer nose on yer avatar :p

Depending on which part of the country you live in, an acceptable solution might be to spackle in a little bondo ;-)

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Originally Posted by mparker762

Depending on which part of the country you live in, an acceptable solution might be to spackle in a little bondo ;-)

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But darnit, I don't live in Texas. :( :D

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Originally Posted by Joe Chandler

But darnit, I don't live in Texas. :( :D

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Oh the it's duct tape or super glue ;)

Texan,
I'll echo the 1K hone, but when you go that coarse, tape the spine of the blade to prevent undue wear. I use regular masking tape and replace as necessary. I know that some use electrical tape; I've tried it but find that masking tape works just as well, doesn't leave any adhesive on the razor, and doesn't leave any residue on my hones.

Just another data point,
Ed

If its a really small nick and I mean really small I've had good success just using the Norton 4K. A combination of circular and back and forth honing. Yea a 1K will be faster but if all you have is the 4K/8K combo it will do the job. Also if its on the very end it may not be that big a deal, you'll have to see if it affects your shaving. Some of us here are real anal about our razors and they have to be 100% perfect.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joe Chandler

Do you have a 1000 grit stone? If so, that's the best way I've found to take nicks out. Just go slow...it'll work out in time.

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If you can focus on that avatar long enough to see up the nose...something is wrong. Joe was a nice looking man before that thread on Quadruple Scotch. This avatar is the "after" picture!

RT

Bondo sucks. JB Weld is the only way to go. I thought about making a form out of duct tape, and pouring in JB weld...

thebigspendur, you are right, the nick is small enough and in a place that didn't affect my shaving at all, but it was scuffing up my strop, and I can't have that.

Sorry, didn't take any pictures because I fixed it, thanks to your advice. I started on my 1K hone, and with a combination of the circular motion as well as regular lapping, I had the nick out in about 1 minute. I then went through my hone progressions and finished on my 6K hone. It was getting late, so I decided to go ahead and try a shave and save my pasted strops for the next day. Wouldn't you know it, but I got as good a quality shave as a 6K hone can give you.

I have to add that I feel quite a bit of satisfaction as this was the first time I have honed, felt like I knew what I was doing, fixed the nick, put back on a nice edge, was able to monitor the improvement of the edge, and had a great shave. The entire process took about 1/4 of the time as my first honing experiences, and those were on an already sharp blade. Its amazing how quickly honing works when you don't dull the blade every third stroke.

I guess this newbie is finally starting to get the hang of the straight...and thanks to the advice from this forum... props to the forum...

I forgot, I also wanted to add that for the whole honing process I used electrical tape on the spine. 2 reasons, forestry prof mentioned the first one. The other reason is because I noticed that when I first recieved my razor (DOVO), the spine had slight honing wear on it (not sure if this is normal). When I first honed it, I noticed the edge didn't lie flat on the stone on one side. At the time I decided it was because of slight variations in the wear on the spine. I put some tape on it, and the edge laid perfectly flat then. Later, I realized the the hone needed some lapping, so now I'm not sure if the imperfections were in the blade's spine, or the unlapped hone. But I still use the tape.

Electrical tape's the best stuff I've found for the coarse (1K) grit stone. You don't have to replace it every 5 strokes. I still use scotch tape for the 4k and up, simply because I don't like the black slurry I get on the stone. Plus, replacing the tape frequently gives me more consistent angles, and because it's much thinner, the scotch tape give me an angle more like honing without tape at all, which is ideal because of the way razors are designed. I get the benefits of reduced hone wear, without changing the way it was designed to work significantly.