Thread: Frustrated with a capital I

Originally Posted by Laurens

The magic roll: it's a bit hard to put into words, but let me try. Start rolling just before you stop sliding and start sliding just before you stop rolling and the edge touches the strop. Once you get that feeling, you cannot nick the strop, because the edge is always moving away from the leather and never pauses (or reverses) on it.

Oh, I get that. And I was "good" at it all the way until I didn't stop the slide in time. And again. And again. That one accursed day I just kept nicking and nicking. And after that I went airborne.

Question on your theory. You say "convexed the bevel". I've never been super clear on what people mean when they discuss convex/concave on three dimensional bodies. In my mathy world it'd be easier to discuss but math doesn't go over well in the real world. So I can see two ways one could have convexity. Looking down on the blade, with is lying flat, the edge itself could be non-straight, with a "belly" in the middle. Just like the SRP logo, in fact. If that were the case I'd expect water to drain from the two ends of the blade, not the middle. I'd expect water to drain from the middle if the blade were shaped the opposite - concave, iow.

Or there's a second case. The blade surface itself isn't flat (like a potato chip). So when it's laid down on the hone, from above the edge is straight but for a fruit fly sitting on the hone, watching the blade approach, there'd be a gap in the middle and the two ends would touch the hone's surface.

Which of these conditions are you thinking it is? And how does the hone wear pattern lead to it? And how do I avoid it in the future! :-)

Before doing anything else to this blade, do a Sharpie test. Even without magnification you should be able to get a good idea what's going on with the bevel, and that should help point you in the right direction for a solution.

Originally Posted by Ecl

Before doing anything else to this blade, do a Sharpie test. Even without magnification you should be able to get a good idea what's going on with the bevel, and that should help point you in the right direction for a solution.

There are two? types of permanent sharpy, one is paint like and the other is a thin dye type. If you can sorta see thru the color on the razor edge that is what you want, it is thin enough to be abraded off and not break off. Some of the big red ones work well and the big black and blue will often make too thick a coating which will break off without telling much.
Yes, It took me a long while to figure why the common answer didn't work for me.
Have fun!
~Richard

Originally Posted by Ecl

Before doing anything else to this blade, do a Sharpie test. Even without magnification you should be able to get a good idea what's going on with the bevel, and that should help point you in the right direction for a solution.

I was definitely not happy about the Sharpie test. Not sure if when you say Sharpie you mean the sort of Sharpies that I have. Small ink nib with metal surround. All that happened was I cut the nib and I'm sure dinged my blade against the metal surround :-(

So I went ahead with reset and then pyramid. And it is still pretty similar to where it was. So I thought that pictures would help. Since I received the blade it's had more visible bevel on one side vs the other. And it still does. "A" in my pic shows one side, with the red indicating bevel. "B" shows the other side. Note that there is less width of bevel on the ends as compared to "A" and also almost none in the middle. If I look end-on it seems to me that the blade may be leaning over (exaggerated in "C"). That would account for a smaller visible bevel, I would think. But it doesn't really account for the non-uniform width of bevel in "B". I can't think of why this would be happening.

Does this set of pictures help make clear what may be going on with the blade?

I think the Sharpie Geezer is referring to is the one with a felt tip ( no metal ) in a red color because it's more transparent.

Look at your razor very closely as you see in "C" of your drawings

See if the grind is slightly off side to side, many of them are this would cause the bevel to be slightly off as you describe..

If this is the reason it is not uncommon, there is no fix, and it doesn't effect honing or shaving...Other then the look of the bevel..

Don't rack your brain...send it off to be sharpened.

I have looked closely and I'm not sure precisely what's off. It seems to be canted left. Is it conceivable that I could have caused it by exerting too much force during the stropping? Bent it over slightly?

Originally Posted by Wayne1963

Don't rack your brain...send it off to be sharpened.

Absolutely was going to but the guy who'd I'd queried took a few days to reply and my "do it myself of not" meter drifted onto "yeah, do it yourself" range.

Convex as it is use in this stropping context, is that the edge has become so rounded that the edge is no longer sharp. I doubt this is what happened, more likely the edge struck the strop and crushed or chipped the thin edge. This if done on a pasted strop is a kin to putting the edge to a belt sander. Usually at the flip or a second of inattention, we have all done it.

A convex bevel is actually a good thing, where the bevel is more boat hull shaped rather than V shaped. The boat hull is thicker and stronger than a V shape and can be caused by slack in a hanging strop as opposed to a hard surface paddle strop.

I suspect your edge struck the strop and damaged the edge it can take just one strike or brush to cause damage. Depending how large the chip are and how many times the edge struck the strop will determine how much grit will be needed to hone out the chip/s. Honing on a 8 &5 K hones may not be enough to remove all the chipping.

First look straight down on the edge with magnification and a strong light. Any shinny spots are where the bevels are not meeting and or chipped sections of the bevel. Any chipping will need to be removed. Meeting bevels will look grey and fuzzy and will not reflect light. The edge should grab or cut arm hair at this point.

The other thing to look at with the sharpie ink test (Fiber Tipped Marker) is to determine if your honing is reaching the edge. If the razor was honed taped and then honed untapped the hone may not reach the edge.

To test, draw the marker along the edge with just the weight of the marker on the edge. The edge will cut slightly into the fiber tip and paint both sides of the bevel and tip of the edge. If you are careful you can feel any snagging of the fiber tip by chipping. A Q tip also works well for this, you will be able to feel and see the snagging of the cotton fibers this will not damage an edge.

Then hone on the highest grit hone one lap on each side and check to see if ink is removed at the edge. That the bevel width is not even is not critical as long as there is a complete bevel from heel to toe. If the bevel is not complete, neither is the edge.

Photos of the razor would be helpful.