Thread: What do you do with extremely uneven spines?

Originally Posted by rickytimothy

Gotcha. If you set the bevel correctly you eventually can stop using the rolling X strokes when moving on to higher stones, right?

No, you'll always hone with a RollingX, start to finish. If it has a smiling blade, or wonky wear, its going to take a rolling X to hone it.

Originally Posted by outback

No, you'll always hone with a RollingX, start to finish. If it has a smiling blade, or wonky wear, its going to take a rolling X to hone it.

Brutal. My inner perfectionist winces at the idea that it's not really fixable. I'll still try though.

It'll hone up, just gonna take a bit to get there. Definitely not the best blade to be learning on, but if you master it, the next, and preceding razors will get easier.

So much to learn....young grasshopper.

Much of the problems with this and similar razors is that the person honing wants to make the blade fit their idea of what is right.

Change your method to fit the razor not the other way around.

When my spines uneven I go to the Chiropractor! Ha! sorry couldn't resist.

The shape of the edge is a smirk, that better than straight. Razors only went to straight edges to get high production thin ground razors. Historically, pre hollow grinding machines, every razor had a smile, some thinner grinds than others. The smile or smirk is the better shaving edge. The goal is to get it shaving along the full edge, while maintaining the smirk of the razor. Sure you could grind it straight, but that will be a lesser shaving razor. I always try to gently hone towards a smirk, even if I start with a straight edge. The straighter the edge, the less it will smirk, but the closest thing to a frown is a straight edge.

The heel is keeping the edge off the stone. If you correct the heel, the razor will sit better on the stone and the amount of “roll” needed may be very slight. The spine was not that cooked, the heel is the problem.

Correct the heel, then mark the spine, stabilizer, and edge with colored sharpie, do a few laps on a high grit stone and see where you are making contact.

Then adjust your stroke to hone the whole edge. You will need at least 2 layers of tape to make up for spine wear.

You hone how the razor dictates. What you have now, is a perfect example of doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Originally Posted by RezDog

The shape of the edge is a smirk, that better than straight. Razors only went to straight edges to get high production thin ground razors. Historically, pre hollow grinding machines, every razor had a smile, some thinner grinds than others. The smile or smirk is the better shaving edge. The goal is to get it shaving along the full edge, while maintaining the smirk of the razor. Sure you could grind it straight, but that will be a lesser shaving razor. I always try to gently hone towards a smirk, even if I start with a straight edge. The straighter the edge, the less it will smirk, but the closest thing to a frown is a straight edge.

By even it out I don't mean remove the smile, I mean just get the wear to a relatively even depth across the razor. For some reason there is almost no wear near on the spine near the tang, and almost 2mm of wear near the toe, which seems like it would cause the edge to be super uneven. Even with a smile, if this razor was correctly honed previously, it should still have relatively even wear, should it not? Is it normal for razors to have almost no wear in some places of the spine?

Originally Posted by Euclid440

The heel is keeping the edge off the stone. If you correct the heel, the razor will sit better on the stone and the amount of “roll” needed may be very slight. The spine was not that cooked, the heel is the problem.

Correct the heel, then mark the spine, stabilizer, and edge with colored sharpie, do a few laps on a high grit stone and see where you are making contact.

Then adjust your stroke to hone the whole edge. You will need at least 2 layers of tape to make up for spine wear.

You hone how the razor dictates. What you have now, is a perfect example of doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

The heel is part of the edge is it not? I'm not sure what you mean by the heel keeping the edge from sitting flat. The heel indeed does look terrible on this razor but I don't understand how it would mechanically cause it to sit unevenly, unless it is blatantly tilted in one direction.

Adjusting the spine of a razor is a very advanced skill. It is done mostly to correct grinding errors. It will wreck an otherwise serviceable razor if used to even out hone wear. Geometry is kind of a delicate line. Razors of this era walked that line tightly. Because you are just starting, you are looking for a more simple route. What we are saying is actually the more simple route. It seems complicated, but really it is not. I’m sorry we can sit down and go go over it.

Originally Posted by RezDog

Adjusting the spine of a razor is a very advanced skill. It is done mostly to correct grinding errors. It will wreck an otherwise serviceable razor if used to even out hone wear. Geometry is kind of a delicate line. Razors of this era walked that line tightly. Because you are just starting, you are looking for a more simple route. What we are saying is actually the more simple route. It seems complicated, but really it is not. I’m sorry we can sit down and go go over it.

Not even really seeking simplicity as much as "proper" whatever that means to me being someone who has never done this before. It intuitively seems like it just would make much more sense to hone on a spine with even wear, I'll just accept that this is wrong, I have no problem with that there's no way I know better than anyone here, it's just the sort of thing that seems completely backwards until you probably hone 50 razors then eventually it makes perfect sense.