Thread: New razor, supposed to be shave ready, yeeeeeah right!..

Just getting technical for a while.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the spine. Often on the English razors, the spine bevel is wider near the end than at the toe. Some times the spine is slightly thinner at the tip to achieve this automatically when you hone using a figure of eight pattern on a hone that is 2" or less wide. I think that during the hammering process, the end was given an extra hit on both sides. I have seen many Sheffield razors with this deliberate engineering.
The design leads to a wider edge at the tip and removes any spike off the razor tip, but replaces it with a sharp curved end. If you don't like the sharpness running around the tip of the razor, you just strike it once or twice along the side of your hone to blunt it down. This was common practice with English razors. Very unlike many American razors which had a deliberate spike point and in some respects were not as sophisticated.

My feeling is that the razor was initially honed using tape and to get back to none taped bevel takes a bit of work on a 1000 grit hone. The blade is nearly a wedge and so it was quick to develop a new bevel on the edge using tape, but it's a slow process to reverse and it does wear the spine bevel to do the catch up.

I will repeat having used a Spyderco 1000 grit(fine) for a while, that good quality wet and dry will do a quicker and in my opinion better job. I use the paper dry and change it for a fresh piece after ten return passes. The result is a very grippy edge with a perfect V. I don't find the difference between 1000, 1200,1500 or 2000 grit wet and dry paper makes much difference. However, I usually use the 1500 grit.


Why anyone should think that wet and dry will do a bad job defeats me. It's just a hone and with wet and dry it's also new and very abrasive, unclogged and put on glass, as flat as you can get. Anyway it' s always done a good job in my hands. It's a very quick and simple process.

Originally Posted by English

Just getting technical for a while.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the spine. Often on the English razors, the spine bevel is wider near the end than at the toe. Some times the spine is slightly thinner at the tip to achieve this automatically when you hone using a figure of eight pattern on a hone that is 2" or less wide. I think that during the hammering process, the end was given an extra hit on both sides. I have seen many Sheffield razors with this deliberate engineering.
The design leads to a wider edge at the tip and removes any spike off the razor tip, but replaces it with a sharp curved end. If you don't like the sharpness running around the tip of the razor, you just strike it once or twice along the side of your hone to blunt it down. This was common practice with English razors. Very unlike many American razors which had a deliberate spike point and in some respects were not as sophisticated.

Thanks for the explanation, I've got a couple of Sheffields with the rounding and the wider spine bevel, excellent shavers.

Originally Posted by English

My feeling is that the razor was initially honed using tape and to get back to none taped bevel takes a bit of work on a 1000 grit hone. The blade is nearly a wedge and so it was quick to develop a new bevel on the edge using tape, but it's a slow process to reverse and it does wear the spine bevel to do the catch up.

I will repeat having used a Spyderco 1000 grit(fine) for a while, that good quality wet and dry will do a quicker and in my opinion better job. I use the paper dry and change it for a fresh piece after ten return passes. The result is a very grippy edge with a perfect V. I don't find the difference between 1000, 1200,1500 or 2000 grit wet and dry paper makes much difference. However, I usually use the 1500 grit.

Why anyone should think that wet and dry will do a bad job defeats me. It's just a hone and with wet and dry it's also new and very abrasive, unclogged and put on glass, as flat as you can get. Anyway it' s always done a good job in my hands. It's a very quick and simple process.

I've used both sandpaper and a DMT 1200 to establish the bevel, and for me the biggest difference is that the wet/dry paper sometimes would sort of "bunch up" in front of the blade, but if you keep focus on holding the paper thought to eliminate the problem, I haven't noticed much difference in the end result.