Thread: Unable to Put a Decent Edge on a Friodur 472

Recently I found what I thought to be a nice, clean looking Friodur 472.

It's not my first Friodur, not even my first 472, and so far I have been able to get a nice crisp edge on all of them, even though some took longer than others.
Not this one.

Having honed about 20 razors so far, I tried about four times with this 472 but the razor just wouldn't take a decent edge on the Naniwa 1000.
Using a watchmaker's loupe, I found some pitting on the edge near the point and - worse - a fine hairline -crack on the point that was not visible to the naked eye.

As the hairline crack is in the point, I might consider taking the risk of using the razor IF (and this is a big IF) I could get a decent edge on it.

Essentially, I consider this razor now a write-off and am prepared to give up on it, unless I had the razor re-ground into a much shorter razor, which I am not terribly keen on.
As I have more than a week's supply of daily Friodurs, its not a great loss and I accept that this comes with the territory when collecting vintage razors.

But does anybody dare to give a second opinion what else I could do with this razor, or do you all agree with my "re-grind" or "write-off" assessment?


Your advice will be very much appreciated....



B.

I have heard of quite a few people that shave with them inspire of the crack. I think the way the story goes on this one is as long as there is no gap in the crack it will still shave without grabbing. The other options are, a display piece, and shorten. There are not a lot of roads going away from this one.

Have to say that I have shaved, unknowingly, with 2 razors in my rotation that had cracks in the blade. When I discovered them, I set them aside. Too many none cracked ones to tempt fate by using cracked ones. Never noticed any difference shaving with them only on close inspection during a touch up honing.

I would say shortened or put aside for display too.

Bob

You said that the crack is in the point. Would making it a round toe make it so that the crack wouldn't affect shaving. Pics might help

Originally Posted by eddy79

You said that the crack is in the point. Would making it a round toe make it so that the crack wouldn't affect shaving. Pics might help

The crack is at the midpoint, so changing the toe to a round point would not change much.

It is not visible to the naked eye, and I found it only using a watchmakers loupe with 10x magnification, so providing any picture is near impossible without special equipment.

If up that high on the blade I would ignore it as it should not cause any problems. If it was at the edge that would be a different story.