Thread: Bread knifing

Nice work, love the scales.

Just a bit of advice, when you remove a lot of material, keep an eye on the heel if it has a stabilizer. You can see where the stabilizer has been riding on the stone during honing, though the heel appears to be well honed.

Removing a lot of width can move the corner of the edge behind the stabilizer and will cause you problems honing and if allowed to continue will make a sharp corner and eventually a hook, both will cut you. Compare the old photo to the new one.

You can/should re profile the heel, I use a coin or washer to get the radius I like, mark it with a sharpie so the edge is about a 1/16 or an inch in front of the stabilizer, about where it was on this razor prior to edge correction.

Put the heel on a diamond plate or low grit stone and cut a facet about 45 degrees to the edge, to the line of the sharpie, then another in front of the tip of the facet and another behind it, now just smooth out the radius.

The metal is thin and will not take many strokes to re-profile, so keep an eye on the line. Do this before you hone, then make sure to add a bit of pressure on the heel to bring the bevel to meeting there.

Also, when re-profiling an edge, either bread knifing or high angle honing, take the time to make a template of the blade and re-profile the cardboard template. Trace the template onto the blade and mark the edge with a black sharpie. A compass or pair of dividers will allow you to match the curve of the spine, if there is one.

This will show you what the blade will look like, if you are not happy make a new template until you are. WD40 will remove the ink.

Now cut just short of the line, Bread Knifing or Hight Angle honing, bevel setting will bring you to the line and remove the least amount of metal.

Here is a post on making and using a template. “Make me Smile.”