My addiction has progressed to honing

[JTmke]

Shaving with a straight has become an addiction or rather a gateway. I now have purchased a few vintage razors from eBay and I plan to hone them. First one out was a smiley King Cutter that now shaves very well.
My question for the masses is how to avoid creating the smiley or frown when honing. Of the four razors I have purchased only the King Cutter was not a "straight" edge but I would like not to create a frown or smiley as I would hope to shave with the razors.

Any advice?

[Christel]

Keep the spine on the hone at all times and don't go mental with the pressure - if the blade is straight already then x-strokes won't deform the shape. Avoid using a stone which is courser than 1k and check the blade while honing to make sure you are not removing material in an uneven mannner - a sharpie marker will help with this.

You may wish to research the smiling profile that some razors have - while it requires a slightly different technique ton hone them, it's far from undesirable - in fact many people prefer them to the completely straight edge profile.

[RezDog]

to further Christel, quite a few razors were made to be smiling. In a perfect world the edge should parallel the spine most of the time, I can't think of any exceptions to that but they could be out there. Many find the smiling edge to be more desirable, and people used to intentionally hone them that way. From looking at old razors i have to wonder if slightly up on the toe was intentional too.

[Christel]

From looking at old razors i have to wonder if slightly up on the toe was intentional too.

I've often wondered about this also. I can't shake the feeling that it is actually as a result of uneven honing - I mean the toe is great for precision cutting and the heel by contrast is often neglected as part of the shaving process. Of all the vintage blades I've come across, I find the heel is very often neglected and I wonder whether the razors with a half smile that accentuates the toe are more a result of uneven honing than anything else.

[Cangooner]

I've often wondered about this also. I can't shake the feeling that it is actually as a result of uneven honing - I mean the toe is great for precision cutting and the heel by contrast is often neglected as part of the shaving process. Of all the vintage blades I've come across, I find the heel is very often neglected and I wonder whether the razors with a half smile that accentuates the toe are more a result of uneven honing than anything else.

I suspect there is no one answer to this. Some surely were accidentally honed that way out of poor technique, but others, just as surely, would have intentionally been shaped to meet the user's preference. YMMV, etc., and so on...

But to the OP, as Shaun and Christel have said, while frowns are really universally seen as bad things, shaving with a smiling razor can be a lovely experience. Of my three favourite razors, two have slight smiles. That profile is just one aspect that affect the way they shave (size, weight, type of steel, grind, honing, etc...) but I sure do like 'em. I think out of the couple dozen or so blades I have, only five or six would be seen by most as truly 'straight'. The rest have at least a little bit of a smile.