Thread: Rolling X - I think I figured something out

IMO, Id cut off the toe and make it a shorty. Grind the heal/stabilizer back away from the edge. Then see about honing. But that would be if i had nothing better to work on. The blade has been worn to the point of being scrap. Learn to buy razors that are not beyond fixing properly. That too takes time to learn.
As Tom said... Buy one of much better shape and not 4 pieces of scrap metal.

Sorry for being so blunt. We all learn as we go along and have been there before.

Truth

You learn to hone from the top down not the bottom up

So many guys new to honing start at the bevel set and try and learn to hone often with suspect razors this makes the whole process take longer and honestly you teach yourself bad habits

Learning to maintain a shave ready razor first teaches you so much more about the touch required and you learn how the edge should look/feel much faster


But nobody listens

Yep. I was one of those who wouldnt listen and it took me many months and razors before it started to come together.

Yup, heel correction would have made the razor so much easier to hone and would have prevented all the damage to the Heel, Stabilizer, Spine, Frowning edge and Massive Wear at the toe.

The razor is riding on the stabilizer, which keeps the heel half of the razor off the stone, so the honer just applied more pressure and needlessly caused all that damage.

Re profiling the heel will move the corner of the edge, at the heel, well forward of the stabilizer and prevent the stabilizer from making contact, the edge will then sit flat on the hone.

You could reshape the heel or make the heel match the toe for a super smiler. Either way nothing will fix the toe. A Super Smiler will also remove the frown at the same time removing a minimum of steel.

As said earlier, this is not honing, this is repair work, so that it can be properly honed. Two layers of tape should make up for lost spine thickness. It is an easy repair, there are several threads on heel correction, all you need is a diamond plate or low grit stone. The steel is thin at the heel and can be removed easily.

Do make a plan/template and mark the razor with a sharpie, it is too easy to cut too much and make things worse.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Yup, heel correction would have made the razor so much easier to hone and would have prevented all the damage to the Heel, Stabilizer, Spine, Frowning edge and Massive Wear at the toe.

The razor is riding on the stabilizer, which keeps the heel half of the razor off the stone, so the honer just applied more pressure and needlessly caused all that damage.

Re profiling the heel will move the corner of the edge, at the heel, well forward of the stabilizer and prevent the stabilizer from making contact, the edge will then sit flat on the hone.

You could reshape the heel or make the heel match the toe for a super smiler. Either way nothing will fix the toe. A Super Smiler will also remove the frown at the same time removing a minimum of steel.

As said earlier, this is not honing, this is repair work, so that it can be properly honed. Two layers of tape should make up for lost spine thickness. It is an easy repair, there are several threads on heel correction, all you need is a diamond plate or low grit stone. The steel is thin at the heel and can be removed easily.

Do make a plan/template and mark the razor with a sharpie, it is too easy to cut too much and make things worse.

It is funny, I thought about making the heel match the toe, but in the end did not think that it would look good. This was a before picture. I have "reshaped" the heel. I spent an evening going through all the blades and reshaping the ones that needed it. But, I am extremely bad at it still. I have not been able to figure out the stroke down the diamond plate to get a curve. It is because the steel is so thin, my attempts so far make a guitar plucking sound as part of the blade catches in the grit. So, I ended up with chamfers instead of curves.

The spine thickness is pretty even, though. It's 0.176" at the heel and 0.172" in the middle and toe. But the blade width drops from 0.59" in the middle to 0.47".

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Truth

You learn to hone from the top down not the bottom up

So many guys new to honing start at the bevel set and try and learn to hone often with suspect razors this makes the whole process take longer and honestly you teach yourself bad habits

Learning to maintain a shave ready razor first teaches you so much more about the touch required and you learn how the edge should look/feel much faster


But nobody listens

To be fair, you asked for one of the worst examples. That one has not made it into the "to be honed" bucket. I am having trouble with razors in much better shape than that one . But, there are at least five razors in line before that one.

All the razors I have been working on so far have been very kind to me and just needed flat strokes. Then I was playing with one Sharptonn sold me and it needed a bit of a twist at the end. It is next in line to shave with to see if I got it right.

But, you do have me concerned with the "bad habits" part. So, I'll have to do some pondering when the ugly ones come up.

Use your common sense with the more difficult ones. I don't think Glen is saying you can't have a go at the "restorer's dream" razors off ebay, just that they probably shouldn't be your first intro to straight razor honing if it can be avoided. At some point you do have to try a restoration hone I reckon, even if it is just to say you've done it, but if by that time you have developed the requisite honing skillset the job's easier and less prone to ruination.

I have to say, and probably Glen would have had this issue too back in the day also, that when I first started there was not a tonne of info out there on straights (or at least I didn't know where to find it) - I think SRP was either in its infancy or about to start up. My first few razors were the un-awesome kind off ebay and a brand new Dovo bought from a shaving store. Perhaps counterintuitively, that Dovo was actually the worst thing I could have bought because I thought that was the standard of edge required on a straight razor, never understanding that the factory only really did a rough bevel job and nothing more! So I laboured for a long time teaching myself how to hone on these crap razors using a crappy-edge razor as the benchmark. I got there eventually, but if I had had the resources of a place like SRP back then I think I could have saved myself months, if not years of heartache and pain.

What's the point of my ramble? Dunno...I'm an old man now and I'm allowed to both ramble and talk about the good old days. Go hone a razor whippersnapper.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Use your common sense with the more difficult ones. I don't think Glen is saying you can't have a go at the "restorer's dream" razors off ebay, just that they probably shouldn't be your first intro to straight razor honing if it can be avoided. At some point you do have to try a restoration hone I reckon, even if it is just to say you've done it, but if by that time you have developed the requisite honing skillset the job's easier and less prone to ruination.

I have to say, and probably Glen would have had this issue too back in the day also, that when I first started there was not a tonne of info out there on straights (or at least I didn't know where to find it) - I think SRP was either in its infancy or about to start up. My first few razors were the un-awesome kind off ebay and a brand new Dovo bought from a shaving store. Perhaps counterintuitively, that Dovo was actually the worst thing I could have bought because I thought that was the standard of edge required on a straight razor, never understanding that the factory only really did a rough bevel job and nothing more! So I laboured for a long time teaching myself how to hone on these crap razors using a crappy-edge razor as the benchmark. I got there eventually, but if I had had the resources of a place like SRP back then I think I could have saved myself months, if not years of heartache and pain.

What's the point of my ramble? Dunno...I'm an old man now and I'm allowed to both ramble and talk about the good old days. Go hone a razor whippersnapper.

James.

Ha, I didn't take it as not to have a go. More of a caution that if I don't know how to do the easy ones, not going to get the hard ones done right. Learn to fall before you learn to walk, that sort of thing.

I am with you on the shave ready thing. My benchmark is based on a memory of a store bought razor from 18 years ago. So, do my edges come out to some high standard....i don't know....but it results in comfy close shave. But, I love driving my Toyota. I have never driven a Ferrari, so I can't say if it drives as well as that, but it gets me from place to place. Also, it will get loosey goosey going around a corner at 25 mph, so I get to have that livin' on the edge feel without breaking the speed limit .

The beauty of this sport is that you can drive the Ferrari if you want. Send out one of your razors to a honemeister. Tried and true.

James.

Originally Posted by planeden

Also, it will get loosey goosey going around a corner at 25 mph, so I get to have that livin' on the edge feel without breaking the speed limit .

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