restoration of frowned razor, unable to bring back to shave ready

Hello everyone,

I have had this razor that I bought off ebay, in fact it was the first razor that I bought off there and at the time didn't know what to look for in a good razor. Anyways, the razor has been lying around for a year and I thought I would finally restore it. Except for the frown, the razor is in excellent condition.

I used the breadknife method on a DMT (with one layer of tape) in order to get rid of the frown and that worked fairly well. I used gsixxgun's video on blade restoration. In my ignorance, maybe because I felt that I didn't have to breadknife that much and wanted to preserve the blade as much as possible, I went straight to setting a bevel on Naniwa 1k. Needless to say, at 4k and 8k it wouldnt shave any arm hair.

So I went back to the DMT and attempted to set a bevel at that stage, gradually decreasing the angle. This time I used three layers of tape. I did a couple of laps, as well as used Honing a damaged blade - Straight Razor Place Library and followed the instuctions there. Then I removed two layers of tape and went to 1k and 4k. At 4k (and I think even at 1k) now I was able to shave off some arm hair. Unfortunately, as I progressed through the stones, the blade didnt get much better.

So I'm not really sure right now whether I should go back to the DMT and redo the bevel setting there, or I should go back to the 4k and refine the edge. If I shave off arm hair does that means that the bevel is set?

I am also wondering whether I should redo the whole bevel again and this time use a magic marker test, but Im not sure whether I can use that at the DMT or 1k level.

Final thing, I believe the blade was originally supposed to be meant to be smiling, and now I made it absolutely straight at the blade. If I measure the width of the blade at the center, it is about 0.02 inches less than the width at the heel and toe. I was thinking about going back to the breadknifing technique in order to make more of a smile, ie round it off at heel and toe, but then Im kinda worried that it would mess up its geometry.

Pic of said razor ????

If the frown was bad the spine will reflect it unless someone used finger pressure on the edge to create it.
You may need to work on the spine rather than tape it but as Glen asked " Pics of said razor ?"

I say send it out to a pro. (I can HIGHLY recommend Glen)
They will get it back to workable condition if it's possible and you can go from there.

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Who is the maker of that razor?

its a stiz 58. On the front it says "Stolichnaya". It was manufactured in USSR.

The center of the spine is a little worn but not drastic..

I don't see anything that should stop that razor from popping a bevel, it is just going to take some work..

Honing and Edge restoration are two very different things

I would go 1k and no tape until it's all flat and level but that can be pretty brutal to the spine. In fact, if the spine is the cause, one wonders if you could tape the edge and hone flat to grind the spine on purpose (blasphemy).

On the other hand, heel and toe-leading strokes might be all you need.

Follow Glen's advice first.

I have a razor like this that I haven't touched yet because it is badly frowned. I think the PO must have sharpened it without the spine touching the stone, and the tang lower than the stone. Or something. Might be a letter opener.

To me I also think that a shaving edge can be put on that blade. I would guess that as you're asking if the bevel has been set you're unsure of how to tell/test, I'd recommend you check the library on here for bevel setting and work consistently with a test that works for you. Some blades seem to take forever, for these I usually do them in stages leaving off when I start to lose patience. I'd also recommend a good quality jewellers loupe. It all takes time and practice, I'm finding that blades I honed from bevel set to "shave ready" over a year ago need more work now that I can feel the difference.

Hint:

The spine has to be evened up, there are two ways to do that :)

2 layers of tape

Grind that crap outta it

The choice is yours :D


Before the spine touches the hone however here is another variation of "Breadknifing" I documented for you guys sometime ago

http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...l-setting.html

Hello guys,

I was able to restore the razor to shave-ready this morning. What I did was I decided to go back to the DMT and this time rather than having a straight line on the edge of the razor, take a little bit off the heel and the toe so that it looks more like a smile. Then I spent a lot of time on the DMT only trying to get a bevel. I only used two layers of tape, since I decided to not use any tape this time around. The reason for not using tape was because of what gssixgun said about the spine, I wanted to make sure it was even. Another reason was that when I was before trying to do the arm hair test, I felt like I needed to set the blade at a 60 degree angle against my skin in order for it to cut, so the bevel felt strangely unnatural to me. When I was done with the DMT, I could definetly see an edge an was popping a bit of arm hair too.

With the Naniwas, I made extensive use of the magic marker test in order to make sure I was catching the heel and the toe, since I made the blade something like a smiling blade. At times, I needed to do something close to a rolling x-stroke in order to catch the very bottom of the heel and very top of the toe. I believe I actually might have a microbevel going on at the tip of the heel and the toe, since when I apply pressure, the very tip is still black from the magic marker.

Anyways, I think my mistake is I didn't spend more time on the DMT trying to etch in a prebevel. Also, I found that for that razor I did not require tape when going to the Naniwas. I dont think I need to go back and grind into the spine do I? Maybe that is why I ended up creating a microbevel at the tips of the heel and the toe, because the spine wasnt exactly even, but I dont use those points of the edge much in my shaving routine. At this point, Im kinda scared to go back to the DMT and mess it up, since it is very exciting to to finally have a shaving edge! :rofl2:

For future reference, to avoid a frown, maintain a smile, on you and on your razor .......... :)

http://straightrazorpalace.com/srpwi...t_-_Honing.pdf

Every Ruski blade I have found was poorly cared for and when properly loved has given me, and others they went to, great shaves.
Enjoy your blade and do not be afraid to go back to the hones till it is perfect!
The Russians have wonderful metallurgy in their razors but corrosion resistance was not part of the plan.
~Richard

Glad you solved the problem...although it's a bit late i'm going to throw in my 2 cents worth.

I had some trouble with frowning blades and here is how I solve the problem.

First of all a frown is obtained by honing on a stone that is not flatened...like a convexe section with the apex to the midle of the hone...Or poor technique like razing the toe or heel when doing the x strokes...
This tipe of hone/honing eats more metal from the spine and the blade in the midle of it....so you get a frown and pronounced honewear on the spine in the middle section.

Breadknifing is not enough to solve the problem...it just solves half of it.

You need to fix the spine.
If you take a micrometer you will find that a frowning blade has a thiner spine in the midle of the spine where the wider honewear is and you have to remove metal from the toe portion and the heal portion of the spine so it has the same width on the wholw lenght.

I usualy take a big saphire marker and mark the honewear on each side. After i breadknife the balde i aply 1-2 layers of tape over the edge and use a similar technique for the spine.
As in the breadknife manuver the honwear has to become even on both sides....A big DMT plate is used to breadknife the honewear witch is marked with the permanent marker...remove metal until you get shiny new metal on both sides of the spine....YES...you are doing rough grinding as Glen says and the objective is to get even honewear on both sides equal to the widest honewear at the middle of the spine....Once you are there you can use a dremmel tool to "crown" the spine some more so that the honewear is not that wide.

Then use the marker again on the spine and bevels and try setting a fresh bevel....this way you check if you got it right....If you get shiny new bevels all the way you're ok.

p.s.
I don't recomend using more than 1 layer of tape when honing .... it increases the cutting angle and blades honed with 2-3 layers of tape dont cut that great and dull faster in my opinion.

Hope this is helpfull and I'm sorry if it has been sayd before...I didn't get a chanse to read all the links and posts.
Best regards, Ovidiu.

I checked the spine with a caliper this morning, and indeed as Glen and Ovidiu have suggested, there is more honewear in the middle of the spine than at the heel and the toe. Ill have to fix that next I need to refresh the razor. thanks for all the help!