Thread: Honing my first wedge

I am pretty new to honing. I have honed 5 or 6 razors over the last couple months. I am attempting to hone my first near wedge, smiling razor. It's a 8/8 Joseph Rogers. I did a bevel set with my King 1k and progressed through with Naniwa 3k/8k. I have gotten some very good shaves with this progression before. I watched all the rolling x stroke videos I could find. The edge looks and feels good to me but the shave was terrible. I watched all the videos again and started back at 1k. Shave test number 2 was just slightly less terrible, still not acceptable.

Do you honing veterans have any advice to offer? Should I start at the beginning and try again? I know I have a lot more to learn so any help would be greatly appreciated.

The key to any honing job is the bevel, stick the bevel and it will all fall into place.

Given that hone wear on the spine and those wide bevels, you may be polishing those mirror bevel sides more than the actual edge. Having struggled with some of these same issues myself, what I have learned to do is two things: 1. Try coloring the edge with a sharpie, and make sure you are actually honing the true edge all the way from toe to heel. Even very focused rolling x-strokes don't always get you on it all the way. 2. A couple layers of tape, evenly applied on both sides, should also help with that. Oh, and 3. I have found the smiling Sheffield edges trickier to strop effectively for the same reasons they can be tricky to hone. I just shaved with a WB and a Frederick Reynolds today. Both needed some extra stropping focus on the heel end when they weren't passing HHT before my shave, just in the heel. 30 more laps making sure I was getting that area, and both were good to go.

Tell us if that helps, and I'm sure the real experts will chime in here in a few, too.

Thank you for the reply. I should have mentioned, I did hone with 2 layers. The hone wear on the sides was there previously. I will try extra stropping.

Then you have to be really sure that bevel is dialed in all the way, too. When my big smiling Sheffields have given less than stellar shave, a less than perfect bevel set was generally the reason.

I cannot make out the entire bevel and edge but it is clear from the top photo that the bevel on the heel end of the front of the blade is not reaching the edge. Are you aware of the marker test? If you do not have access to magnification a Sharpie or some other felt tip marker is going to help you a lot.

Have fun with your first Big Boy Blade!

There is a video by Gssixgun that explains in detail how to hone a wedge like yours, here is the link:

All GREAT advice above!

Is this your first time with the wedge for shaving?
I did NOT like the shaves I was getting with mine.
I KNOW it was sharp because it was honed by Glen....

It is a tiny bit different using a wedge or near wedge than a hollow grind.
Check to make sure your angles are correct.

I now LOVE to shave with mine.
Just took some getting used to.

Yes, also my first time shaving with a wedge. That certainty is another variable to consider.

I followed all of the advice I received. I watched more videos, used marker test, made sure the bevel was perfect and stropped extra. Today I had an amazing BBS shave!

Thank you for all the help [emoji2]