Hey Guys,
It's been awhile since I posted. Busy with work and a pregnant wife. You know how it is.

Anyway, I've still been slowly picking up razors and tinkering with the ones I had here in China. However, I had a couple that had been sitting in my closet in the US for over a year. I decided to send a NOS Hess 44 for Max to hone and a Henckels 401 for him to restore. Additionally, I added in one of those old razors, a FWE Special, that had been sitting in the closet. When I left it, I thought it looked pretty good, some slight pitting, but I might not have stored it too well and

Long story short, Max called and said he would have to send that one back as he would have to remove too much metal to make it worth it. He suggested putting it on ebay with detailed photos of all the problems and listing all the problems and perhaps someone would pick it up for a restore practice and/or the scales. Overall the blade looked great with a mirror polish. There was just too many pits near the bevel. He actually took a marker and showed it all to me. Sure enough, when I got it back in China I put it under the microscope and it looked like craters on the moon.

Anyway, I couldn't be bothered to put it on ebay, so I figured I would start hand-sanding and see what I could do with it. After sanding from 240 grit- to 2000 grit I still thought there was too many micro pits near the edge. Decided to go back to 400 grit. This time, I pretty much removed everything near the edge. Took it all the way to 5000 grit and brought it back to mirror.

Then started honing on it. Needless to say the initial low grit sanding removed too much near the belly/edge and now I can't seem to get a straight bevel. Here is a photo:



I tried to hone past the bevel problem. Blade was originally just over 18mm spine to edge, but the wavy bevel never seemed to get straight. Rolling X, circle strokes, etc... Nothing worked.

After a couple hours of low pressure on the Norton 1000, I had a razor that could pass HHT all along edge at 1000 grit level... unfortunately with a wavy edge. After spending so much time working out the pits and bringing it to a mirror, I wanted it to look perfect.

I took that edge and did Brad's (Undream's) flipper trick holding the razor in the middle and making sure the edge was straight. That brought me to just under 18mm spine to edge.

After honing for another couple hours with low pressure the picture above is what I am left with. Still wavy. Just under 17.5mm Spine to edge.

My question is, do I just live with a wavy bevel or try to do something to flatten out the belly in the spots where the bevel looks wider? I think the narrow bevel spots are where I used to much pressure hand sanding and left the blade a bit too thin.

Note: I have been honing with one layer of tape.