Thread: Stubborn Blade

Did you ever come across a blade that just doesn't take an edge? I just picked up a couple of ebay specials, one of them is a neat looking "Vedepasco" 4/8, Solingen made, silver steel; I'd have thought it'd take a neat edge, but it just won't approach shave sharp.

I've honed up a handful of other razors but this one has me dumbfounded. Have you ever seen anything like this (apart from a chinese/paki cheapo razor)? Ever manage to overcome it?

I think if you have the gear and the abilities you can hone up any razor however for most of us once a razor amasses enough problems the challenges become too great.

In most cases when a razor just doesn't seem to respond it very often has a warp and the blade isn't contacting the hone in places. Try some marker on the edge of the razor and try honing and see if the marker stays on in places. If it does thats your problem. If thats not the problem and it appears to still have a bevel of sorts it can be honed. If the bevel is gone or worse it may need to be reground. That's a big job requiring some specialized knowledge and gear. Otherwise it may just be a matter of persistance.

I tried that trick with the marker and it checks out fine: no lack of contact on the bevel. It has an invisible edge from heel to tip. No warping or anything like that.

It does a have a slight smile and a moderate amount of spine wear; I wouldn't be surprised if the previous owner had troubles honing it too!

Fresh off the hone it doesn't even feel sharp on my fingertips. It's as if the blade is poorly tempered. I guess some may have made it out the factory door this way in the days before comprehensive quality management systems.

I believe that, every once in awhile, a razor misses the mark on the heat treating and it isn't caught by the factory. I know for a fact that not all steels are consistently the same from batch to batch. Steel consistency could also affect the ability to take an edge. There are any number of alloying elements that are added to steel to make them take an edge more easily and other alloying elements which allow them to keep that edge. Who knows? It could have been a week without that alloy available at the foundry. Does it happen? Sure! Does it stop production? No, not in every foundry....

A case in point occurred about two months ago when guerillas in the Congo stopped shipments of cobalt from leaving the country. This had a ripple effect across the globe and was the subject of much talk on the metal market news services. Cobalt is a critical alloying element.

One razor that would absolutely not take an edge was an "A.JAX". I think that the razor was made with cheap Pakistani metal because it does not have made in solingen or sheffield anywhere on the blade. The other razor that has not yet taken an edge (and I don't think that it will) is a "Winchester" from an unknown maker in an unknown area. The steel in these razors is just not good enough to take an edge. If you see one of these razors DO NOT buy them. On a positive side note I think that I will be able to use the scales from the A.JAX on another razor because they do look nice.

[quote=Howard;141022]I believe that, every once in awhile, a razor misses the mark on the heat treating and it isn't caught by the factory. I know for a fact that not all steels are consistently the same from batch to batch. Steel consistency could also affect the ability to take an edge. There are any number of alloying elements that are added to steel to make them take an edge more easily and other alloying elements which allow them to keep that edge. Who knows? It could have been a week without that alloy available at the foundry. Does it happen? Sure! Does it stop production? No, not in every foundry....[quote]

Howard,

Were that the case wouldn't a rather large number of razors be so affected? I have to think that each batch of steel would be in the hundreds or thousands of pounds, certainly much more than one razor's worth. Carelessness like that could ruin Sweden's reputation and make the French and Germans turn to Pakistan for raw materials. As Chester Riley would have said, "now there's a revolting development."

Bruce

Are you familiar with honing silver steel? I'd check the alignment of the edge and hone on 1K for a little bit. Its not like you have anything to lose.

If it never gets close to sharp there is some kind of problem.

From there there are some tricks to silver steel. Send a PM if your not clear on those. I'll explain what I know about them.

I hadn't read your post, but out of sheer determination I thought I'd give this blade a shot on the 1k stone. Came up with a decent looking edge but instead of taking it to the belgian blue as I normally would, went for my rather cracked and hard 'coticule' (i'm still not convinced that's what it is) which I usually use for my penultimate hone for getting a fine edge on my knives.
The edge that came off this was great, I went straight to the strop and this blade just gave me the easiest shave to date. What a great little razor!