Thread: I Drew an Inch and gained more than a mile

Thank you guys,

I don't have a lot of honing experience yet but you have made a tricky subject technique much clearer for me.

If a razor is warped, it will be concave on one side and convex on the other. Find out which is which because you will need a different technique for each.

You will see a narrower bevel in the middle on the concave side. But first make sure that you are not honing on the stabilizer and it is keeping the heel half of the razor off the stone. You can also look at the heel and see where the edge ends, if it is close or past the stabilizer, you are probably honing on the stabilizer, look for wear marks over the stabilizer.

If the razor is warped and most are, fortunately it is usually very slight and the edge is making contact, but not fully because the toe or heel is keeping it off the stone. Some sharpie ink will quickly show you where you are making contact. Use colored ink and you can easily see the ink without magnification.

What makes the One-Inch work is the heel is hanging off the stone for at least half the stroke. The One-inch works.

Or just hone the razor in 2 parts.

For the concave side, start with half the razor hanging off the stone. If you have inked the bevel, you will know where you are not making full contact. Ink the bevel again, so you can see what is happening and hone as normal starting with half the razor off the stone,(or where the ink shows you are not making full contact), this will hone the middle fully.

Then hone starting with the heel on the stone and use an X stroke keeping the heel on the stone at least halfway. Concentrate on keeping the pressure, (really you just need to think about it you do not need to add pressure) on the 1 inch of the stone. Use a bit of rolling, only roll the heel down lightly, not up as in a rolling X.

This will hone the heel half and blend the edge at middle and toe. Fresh ink will show you your progress. This technique hones the middle of the convex side fully and nicely. As I said usually the convex is very slight and it does not take much to get it honed, you do not need to add extra pressure.

The convex side uses a standard rolling X (roll up), using the one-inch method or not, does not matter on the convex side.

As said, you need to know which side is which and hone accordingly or just use a One-Inch straight or X stroke and muscle through it and make an uneven bevel, it will still shave if the warp is not bad.

Usually it is not a warp that is at issue, but the stabilizers. Probably 90 -95 percent of all razor with stabilizers I hone, need some heel re-profiling, even new razors. It literally takes a minute, to correct for most and will save you a lot of steel and frustration.