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  1. #1
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    Default Trouble honing Wester Bros Wedge

    Hey Fellas,

    A little while back I bought a Wester Brothers Manganese Wedge 5/8ths in nice shape. My first hone on the thing, I was having some trouble getting it sharp. 4k, 6k, 6k with 8k nagura slurry, 12k....Finally I got it close to where I wanted it and finished it on the coarse leather with Chromium Oxide, then fine leather and it was pretty good, but I wasn't satisfied. I mean, it shaved hair, but I felt it could be better.

    So tonight I took it back to the 12k Chinese river stone and the edge just turned to crap, won't even cut arm hair when begged.

    Are wedges hard to nail initially? I don't want to have to take it back to the 4k stone to reset the bevel ( but may have to?) I don't want to grind it away, it's a nice little blade!

    Any pointers?

    thanks

    David

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    The Great & Powerful Oz onimaru55's Avatar
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    Eliminate the Ch12k. Does it work well on other razors ? If so did razor shave well at 8k ?

    All razors need a good bevel first, wedges are no different but can of course take longer to set.

    There should be no mystery about the bevel. I find magnification as well as traditional tests will confirm if the bevel is set or not.
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    Senior Member Wolfpack34's Avatar
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    Wedges (near wedges) can sometimes be troublesome, and they have been known to try many a man's patience! The 1st question I would ask is whether or not you are using tape on the spine to hone this blade? If so ...how many layers?

    I usually (pretty much by default!) use 2 layers of tape when honing a wedge...other folks may have a difference of opinion on this, but this is what always seems to work for me.

    When I have an edge problem like this I will check the edge with a bright light and a loop. Flat spots are almost always the problem and they can be seen as very shiny sections on the blade edge. If this seems to be your problem, I would take it back to the 4K just long enough to fix those trouble spots and then move back up the ladder, using two layers of tape.

    I am sure some more experienced hone-meisters will be along shortly to offer some advice as well.

    WP34

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    Senior Member blabbermouth
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    "Are wedges hard to nail initially?" Yeah, usually.

    As the honorable Wolfpack mentioned, tape can be your friend. I've you've not used tape w/ it before - this is important. A true, slab-sided wedge and some near wedges you either get that spine *really* well centered in the tape - or don't use tape and live w/ the massive, wide bevel & hone wear. Tape that's not centered - has you working a new bevel angle w/ each change of tape. Others can probably do it more easily than I, but once I get the heel onto the tape, I close one eye (don't want stereo vision), and use strong back light to guide the rest of the spine in to contact so I don't have the moving bevel.
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    Senior Member blabbermouth
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    I found this site http://www.coticule.be/wedges.html very helpful when I honed the second near wedge that I got. It explains well the issue with taping a wedge like pinklather said. It also has an excel app that allows you to plug in the blade width and spine width to determine how many layers of tape you need to set an acceptable bevel angle. The first near wedge drove me nuts trying to get an edge as I had not seen the linked site at that time. From what I have seem some razors referred to as wedges are more like just a heavier grind and hone up like a full hollow.

    Bob
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    Senior Member eod7's Avatar
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    Sounds like the bevel was not set well. It takes a while to remove significant amounts of steel from a wedge with a 4K stone.
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    Many thanks to Onimaru55, Wolfpack, Eod7, BobH and Pinklarher for the excellent guidance. I will definitely look at the article and app on the usage of tape. The idea never made sense to me because I figured the tape would clog up the stones, but obviously there must be ways around that.

    This Chinese 12k has done a good job on some other razors, so it must be my technique or insufficient patience.

    I will learn the way of the tape!

    I will report back once I have achieved success or after failing and needing more advice

    Thanks again guys

    David
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    Bob,

    this is a really excellent article. It really makes it easy to understand the challenges of the wedge and especially the exact technique with tape. I like the Excel app for calculating tape layers for different blade thicknesses/widths

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    Senior Member blabbermouth
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    Glad you liked the linked info, like I said I found it very helpful and wished I had of seen it before doing my first near wedge. The second one came out super after reading the article and applying it. The only caveat is to watch when you measure for blade size and to do so from the hone wear not the spine to the edge. The app works for all razors, I think, to get you a proper bevel angle. Are you going to take another crack at it?

    Bob
    Life is a terminal illness in the end

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