Thread: Something silly...

I clonked the tip of my razor on the sink, nothing hard and a visual inspection shows no damage but running the thumb along the blade proves there is a 'deviation' there and if you run cotton wool along it it will pull out a piece.

I am thinking it's now out of action as I don't fancy the same problem that grasps the cotton wool getting hold of my skin...

What course of action do I take?

Send to a honemeister to hone the defect off?
Grasp the nettle and attempt it myself on the Norton?
Buy another and wait until my honing ability can cope?

I did run the edge over the linen side of the strop to see if I could straighten the edge but used no pressure and the noise put me off immediately! It's amazing that something that's virtually invisible can be so obvious with a tactile inspection...

As ever gents all help gratefully accepted!!!

I might try taking the 4k side of the Norton and doing a set of 20 small circles on each side of the blade and then a small pyramid and testing the edge again.

Its out of action. What you do is up to you. As advice from a far I would do numbers 1 and 3. But then again I don't know what a nettle is. :-)

I'm with steve. Keep the pressure even along the edge to maintain a constant bevel all the way down.

X

I would get a magnifier and see what I was dealing with before I started honing away. With at least 35x if you can't see any defect in the edge there is probably another problem. If you can see a problem depending on what it is and how large it is and depending on your honing abilities you can either do some appropriate honing or send it out.

I could be wrong but it sounds like your dealing with a hairline crack.
I would follow thebigspenders advice!!
if you have some liquid ink available you could pour a little on your blade and then wipe it off. If there is a crack the ink will remain in the crack and the crack will be more noticeable under magnification!!

Originally Posted by JMS

I could be wrong but it sounds like your dealing with a hairline crack.
I would follow thebigspenders advice!!
if you have some liquid ink available you could pour a little on your blade and then wipe it off. If there is a crack the ink will remain in the crack and the crack will be more noticeable under magnification!!

I'll give that a try, my liking for yester-year means I have true fountain pens all over the place...none of these cartridge imposters!

Will report back tonight...

I found it hard to put a definition of nettle together so here goes from the on-line dictionary. Not sure to 'Grasp the...' is Australian though...

net·tle
–noun 1. any plant of the genus Urtica, covered with stinging hairs. Compare nettle family.
2. any of various allied or similar plants.
–verb (used with object) 3. to irritate, annoy, or provoke.
4. to sting as a nettle does.
—Idiom5. grasp the nettle, Australian. to undertake or tackle an unpleasant task.


Si.

Ok, I haven't enough magnification to see anything, I am trying to get hold of a jewellers glass, if not it's down to Maplins on Saturday for a microscope.

Given that it was only a gentle tap I barely felt is the blade likely to be cracked?

Si.

Si

Sounds like we did the same thing! I posted a mini-thread in the restoration forum about a similar problem I had. See here.

The advice I had varied in terms of no risk/some risk. I guess if you're really concerned, you should send it to one of the honemeisters or restorers. But if it really is so minor as to be undetectable under low magnification, then it sounds like the sort of thing you can hone out yourself if you're willing to try.

I had success with mine and managed to hone out the ding using my basic Norton 4k/8k combo and coticule. The only problem is, having got the edge shave ready (more by luck than skill), I'm now finding it difficult getting it back to that level of sharpness. Shaves are a little less satisfactory. But I guess that just means a little more practice on the hone!

Good luck!
Mark

I finally bit the bullet and took Steve's 20 small circles advice combined with Randy's conservative pyramid and....given that I have only say 30 mins experience with the hone...I managed to fluke an edge that failed every test bar the shaving test! It's getting close-ish to the edge Lynn put on it but once I got a clean shaving edge I didn't push it that 20-25% extra because I felt it would cause me 80% extra work.

I am feeling just a little proud! I knacked my razor and now it's useable again...thank you all for your help and advice...now what can I hone next?