Thread: Losing my smile

The classifieds have member services, but even better would be to find someone near you to go over honing that style blade in person, do a member search for your area. One on one honing lessons can really help.

Originally Posted by benjamin2515101

Thanks Phrank, that's why I posted the thread, I don't want to mess it up. Where do I find out about getting it to a pro?

Originally Posted by benjamin2515101

I have already successfully honed my other 8 "straight" razors and shave with them regularly. I'm just new to the smiling type. Just because I'm a junior member to this forum doesn't mean I'm an idiot. If you talk to me as such, I'll believe you are one.

The use or none use of tape is irrelevant to honing a smiling razor. Use whatever you choose. If you like hone wear on the spine so be it.

The hone wear on the spine, if the razor has a proper grind, should be even all along the spine. Unfortunately, by using a wrong honing stroke for a smiling blade you have succeeded in creating a flat in the smiling edge and corresponding excessive hone wear on the spine above that flat on the edge. Use the rolling X stroke to prevent that in the future as has been said.

This is where honing is not difficult till it is. If you have read enough on here you would have known a smiling razor requires different handling. If you had of used tape the flat in the smile would still have been there but the excessive hone wear to the spine likely would have been far less to nonexistent. That would make correcting the mistake in honing far easier than it will likely be now. Tradition has it's place but sometimes these new fangled ideas have an advantage too.

Bob

This is a picture from the ebay listing. This razor is very hollow, I'm guessing 1/2 hollow, and only a very slight smile. I stopped when I first noticed the front edge not honing.

Originally Posted by benjamin2515101

This is a picture from the ebay listing. This razor is very hollow, I'm guessing 1/2 hollow, and only a very slight smile. I stopped when I first noticed the front edge not honing.

Boy that looks like it was in nice shape, just the way you like to find them. Hopefully using the right stroke you can recover that smile. Good luck.

Bob

This is not mine* I just found this on ebay, and what a shame. I think this one would have benefited from tape during honing.

That looks like someone may have went to a grinder on it, or was honing it to death on a course grit hone for an ax!! That is a shame. Tc

No kidding!! I think I would start with two layers of tape on that one!

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

That looks like someone may have went to a grinder on it, or was honing it to death on a course grit hone for an ax!! That is a shame. Tc

This is why I always recommend to new guys that they should buy some cheap "practice" razors from eBay of different varieties to learn to hone and perfect their skills. There's no substitute for practice. Hit the hones for hours upon hours - you'll know when you're ready - after you've practiced, found problems and solved them until you know what to do immediately first time out, every time.

I did exactly that, I bought a couple of razors for about 10 bucks each and honed them until I could shave comfortably with them, but these were straight back/edge razors. I didn't realize that you had to roll the smiling edge razors as much as is shown in the examples. I had read once on here where you could simply alter pressure from heel to toe while leaving the entire edge in contact.

Originally Posted by benjamin2515101

This is not mine* I just found this on ebay, and what a shame. I think this one would have benefited from tape during honing.

Well, it seems to have a fairly uniform bevel with well-polished surfaces, no odd grit marks. IMO it was a well loved blade and a long lasting companion to its original owner, who was probably a straightfoward-economic minded guy (or a damn scrooge). Razors were as common as wristwatches currently are, a everyday utensil, and I bet my *** nobody used taped spines to hone at the time it was produced.
Had a W&B for barber´s use with very worse and uneven toe-tendency hone wear.

They were just barber´s tools.