Lol. Yes. Good one :tu
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Or they freehanded it. It is doable, I have set a few preliminary bevels on Ebay specials freehand. With a bit of practice one could undoubtedly hone a razor so that it will shave comfortably. Muscle memory is a beautiful thing.
But they probably tried everything at one point.
Keep in mind
The difficulty is honing the old heavy grinds has nothing to do with them being an old heavy grind..
If you hone enough of them you will come across a few NOS ones, and learn that they hone EXACTLY like a Full Hollow.. They they have this sweet tiny even bevel and are easy as any other razor to set
The problem with these old razors is the honing that was done to them over the last 100+ years.
You have to correct the geometry if you want to get them back where they were in the past.
Nobody honed them in the old days by lifting the spine they didn't need to, unless they wrecked the spine to start :(
Just like all the other stories about how they were honed "Back in the Day" simply hone an NOS one and it all makes sense.. Easy as pie
I can attest to this. I sent a 1 inch W&B wedge and a 5/8 W&B 'half hollow' to Glen (gssixgun) for honing. When he sent them back 'shave ready' the wedge's bevel was not any larger than the hollow's.
I recently honed a wedge and the bevel also looks very large towards the center. I'm not sure if this is due more to my error or the wear on the blade. I'm not very experienced, so I'm just looking at is as part of the learning process. :gl: