Thread: Introduction / Honing Question - Think my blade is warped

Hello Straight Razor Gurus,

My name is Matt, I have been straight razor shaving for a couple of weeks now, and I have been lurking these forums a lot. All of the aspects of straight razor shaving really intrigue me and I have been having a lot of fun doing it. I picked up a Dovo 5/8 Best Quality set from Vintage Blades. Been getting some pretty smooth shaves with only minor nicks. They say the razors they sell are honed by Lynn so it was shave ready upon receipt. I tried to do an HHT out of the box but didn't have any success. I later read somewhere that razors don't pass the HHT after being stropped, but then also read info that conflicts this.

I made the error of stropping before shaving I know I had some poor stropping technique (not holding the strop straight enough, too much pressure) and I think I rolled the edge a little. However, I fixed my strop technique and was able to get some nice shaves in my perception.

But I began to get the feeling that it wasn't what it was supposed to be (not like a hot knife through butter) and I picked up a 30x loupe and a 60-100x microscope to check out the edge. At 100x I could see a glinting line right on the edge that I thought could be damage from my initial improper stropping. I also saw a few areas where the edge was looking a bit serrated and I figured it was time to learn to hone.

Picked up a Norton 4000/8000 and a DMT 325 for lapping. Penciled in some grids and got the Norton lapped nice and smooth and both sides. Then I went through a pyramid last night. I had some difficulties initially keeping the blade flat during the X stroke. Sometimes I would lift the heel, sometimes the toe. But eventually I got a pretty good stroke going. Stropped and shave tested. It shaved but not like a knife through butter.

This morning I decided to do another pyramid. But 25 strokes in to the 4K, I checked out the blade with my loupe and noticed that there was the bevel had a smile on one side and a frown on the other. However, when held on a straight surface the blade was slightly smiling overall. I marked the bevel with a Sharpie on both sides, then did one straight stroke on each side. It looks to me that the blade is slightly warped. I'm not sure how I could have done this as I have been exceedingly gentle and careful with it. Thinking it's probably best to send it to a pro. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt

Pictures attached: