Thread: Difficult blade.

I will try to explain my theory on what is happening, and it kind of fits with what Oz said too. The fat edge has been beat up and rusty for a while. All of the fatigue goes past the edge. Kind of like when you file the serial number off of you handgun but the lab guys can use acid on the steel to remove the damaged steel and the serial number jumps right back out again. The edge is sort of like that. You can make it smooth but the underlying damage is still there. By killing the edge hard, it takes off a bunch of the damage steel. The edge then gets honed back up again. If it does not come back nice and even that is because of the damaged, weaker metal pushed back farther than the health steel and it need to have it happen again to get the steel even and healthy. That is sort of how it all wiggles around in my brain. Of course it is an unproven hypothesis but helps me to make sense of it.

Yup, bad steel, breadknife or do as Shaun advised, hone it, kill the edge, hone it again, kill it and hone it one more time. Either way you are getting to good steel. Old Sheffield steel is good steel, but rust is rust…

10X may not be enough to see damage to the edge. 60X lighted loupe for $2 is a good investment.

Go watch drmatt's video on the 5 essential things you must know for bevel setting. I had 3 razors that I never could get where I wanted them. A couple of hours after this video, they were perfect.

That is some seriously aggressive bevel setting with a lot of metal removed. After that aggressive of hone work I should hope the bevel would be set and any weak metal removed.

Thought i would share this with ya'll and give you a good laugh. I got to thinking that Ha i haven't tried the paste on leather on this blade. Well i haven't used paste i almost two years so i found the strop with the green on it and gave it about 4 maybe 5 laps the 50 on just leather. Well After my hot shower i stood in front of the mirror and lathered up real good and raised the blade and first pass. Thought i was going to cry. Did i tell ya'll i'm a little hard headed. Well instead of going to the safe and getting another blade that i know will shave comfortable i decided to finish with the tear jerk er. And it was. I will now wait on my package from straight razor designs before i re- hone this evil thing.