Thread: 1/4 ground wacker spike point...

howdy fellas,

i bought two 1/4 ground wackers from john crowley a month or so ago. a spanish point and a spike point. anyway, i'm having trouble sharpening the spike point. after some experimentation, i've found that the spanish point honed well when on a 30+ degree angle on the hone (point to shoulder) and then honed on an angled motion (shoulder to point).

but with the spike point, i've had no luck with any of the honing motions. i've tried the same motion as mentioned above, an angled-orientation on the hone but a straight push; a 90-degree orientation on the hone with an angled push; even a 90-degree orientaion with a straight push. but no matter what i do, the razor won't sharpen well enough to pass the hht. and over the past few days, i've honed 14 razors. all but the spike point are good and sharp.

i'll admit that my technique isn't the best, but still i'd appreciate any advice you can offer. my honing system is to work the pyramid on the norton until i can pass the hht. and then move on to the coticule so that i can slice hairs of any length with the least amount of pressure. again, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

cheers,
jake pollock
taipei, taiwan

I'd do about 30 strokes on the 4k, 10 strokes on the 8k, lap the hone and do an aggressive pyramid.

If you've got access to a microscope with at least 60x, check the edge for microchips. Wackers are very hard and sometimes can be a bit brittle, and this makes them prone to microchips unless babied on the hone. It can also make them very slow to hone...

You may want to do a few strokes on the razor close to the spike and then do full strokes to blend into the rest of the edge.

Good luck.

Lynn

good luck and please report back if you figure it out. I have the same blade I have been fighting with for a while.

Keep in mind that I'm no hone master... It took me a really long time to get my 1/4 Wacker shave ready- ultimately hundreds of strokes on the 4K-8K. I'd go with Firestart's and Lynn's advice and test frequently. I found it to be a very nice shaver once I got it in the zone. Good luck!

Jordan

first off, thanks for all the tips. at the end of the day, i got what i thought would be success from an angled orientation on the hone and straight push. this has worked well for all my non-smiley blades. after a lot of honing on the 4k and a 4k/8k pyramid, i was able to pass the HHT. i then moved on to the belgian and got the razor to pop hairs like butter.

i know that several of the fellas here have advised against putting too much faith in the HHT. in the past, it's worked really well for me as a reference point to how it will shave. but man, was i wrong with these wackers.

i've got two 1/4 ground wackers; the spanish tip honed up relatively easy, but it was the spike point that i first wrote for help with. anyway, the spike point shaved--in that it cut the hairs on my face. but not in a comfortable way. just today, i shaved with the spanish point, remembering how gracefully it passed the HHT. again, miserable. the shoulder area shaved well, so i shaved my cheeks and neck trying to favor the shoulder. but for my chin, i had to go to the next razor in my rotation. thank god for my 8/8 henckels!

right now i'm going through the first pass of my razors after honing them all to pass the HHT really, really easily. once i get through my rotation of 14 razors, i'll take the less-than-satisfactory ones back to the grinding stone. and hopefully, i'll be able to get these wackers in line. i love my other wedges and really hope that i can get these two razors to match the performance of the older wedges.

cheers,
jake pollock