Thread: What do you do with extremely uneven spines?

Originally Posted by rickytimothy

Attachment 328757

Can someone explain roughly why grinding the spine down (in theory, I'm not going to try it) would ruin the geometry? I made a picture showing what I mean, the way I understand it the only reasonable way to solve the pictured problem would be to even out the spine until its semi-even, otherwise the blade would always sit so severely unevenly on the stone that it would take a high level of skill to hone it into reasonable shape, on both sides, every single time you tried to hone it. The red lines in the picture are roughly what you would get with leaving the blade flat on the hone vs the purple line being if you managed to compensate for it.

I suppose it is actually a correct assumption that it is really hard to get this right and that this razor is essentially garbage to a beginner, but I'm still baffled by the idea that grinding it in theory would mess up geometry.

There is a Vid from Dr Matt called Tap and Wobble on Spine grinding

It is not something that I nor any one that values Vintage razors recommends,, understand Matt and I are friends and agree pretty much on many aspects of honing but not on this ..

He believes that grinding the crap out of warped spines simplifies the honing regime in the future for most honers, I believe there are enough Spines out there that have been destroyed by ham-handed honing that we don't need to add more.. People should learn to hone properly around the many issues that razors will present, because basically in the wild about 50% of all razors have issues..

Your problem on this razor has been accurately diagnosed at the heel on the front side, your spine wear although uneven is not really bad..


But if you want to grind the spine then watch Matt's vid and go for it

Just be cognizant of the fact tape is cheap and removable, where grinding steel off the razor, it can never be replaced

Originally Posted by gssixgun

There is a Vid from Dr Matt called Tap and Wobble on Spine grinding

It is not something that I nor any one that values Vintage razors recommends,, understand Matt and I are friends and agree pretty much on many aspects of honing but not on this ..

He believes that grinding the crap out of warped spines simplifies the honing regime in the future for most honers, I believe there are enough Spines out there that have been destroyed by ham-handed honing that we don't need to add more.. People should learn to hone properly around the many issues that razors will present, because basically in the wild about 50% of all razors have issues..

Your problem on this razor has been accurately diagnosed at the heel on the front side, your spine wear although uneven is not really bad..


But if you want to grind the spine then watch Matt's vid and go for it

Just be cognizant of the fact tape is cheap and removable, where grinding steel off the razor, it can never be replaced

So essentially the reason it's not a big deal that the spine wear is so uneven is because while it was being honed poorly, the metal coming off the edge was also extremely uneven in a way that still kept a somewhat straight edge throughout the process, and that grinding the spine down would actually ruin the weird edge that was created in the process, so it's much easier just to work with what we got and just roll the stroke with tape?

You got it.

Originally Posted by RezDog

You got it.

Ahh that makes perfect sense. I'll see what I can do to get this junk razor decent just for fun. Nothing to lose.