Thread: Dinged my razor!

Tonight was just my second shave with the razor. The good news is that it went much better than the first, it actually started to feel somewhat comfortable. The bad news is that when I was rinsing off the blade, the tip of the blade lightly bumped the bottom of the sink. The blade now drags slightly at the very toe corner when stropping. It is difficult to see exactly what is going on since the damage occurred right at the corner where the edge of the blade meets the rounded end. I looked at it with a magnifying glass and can't really see anything yet when I run my finger over the corner I feel it drag a bit.

I have the norton 4000/8000 stone, as well as the chinese 12000 and some TI paste as well. What would be my best plan of attack to smooth this out? Would back-honing work to straighten out the damage?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

You should be able to see what has happened. Considering that you have no experience whatsoever with honing, I'd say you would dull any part of the edge that you touch to the hone.
So I'd suggest however you do it it doesn't really matter, and as long as it's the very tip of the razor you can probably 'dull' that part only if you're careful and still able to shave with the rest of the edge.

I agree with Gugi - not knowing how to hone properly, you will probably dull the blade.

...but if you did know how to hone properly, and there isn't a significant amount of damage, I'd probably do 5-10 passes on the 4k, 15 or so on the 8k, and probably 20-30 passes on the 12k...

Of course, honing isn't an exactly science, and you really have to go by feel...and like everything, YMMV.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

Mark

Originally Posted by dtougas

It is difficult to see exactly what is going on since the damage occurred right at the corner where the edge of the blade meets the rounded end.

If it's truly the very corner and only the corner of the tip of the edge, I would determine which side of the razor the tip was bent towards and VERY CAREFULLY and lightly, I would run only that tip back and forth or in circles in short strokes over a fine grit hone for a few passes. I had a spike point quite some time ago that suffered the same problem.. Like yours, the point where the end and the very toe of the edge met was bent so minutely that you could not see the damage without some magnification. IIRC I rubbed that lightly on some 2000 grit wet/dry and the problem was fixed. No honing required since the razor was keen.

So, I would not lay the entire blade flat on a hone as in traditional honing; I would isolate the problem area as above and have only that very small area contact the stone or paper. On 2k grit sandpaper you may only need a few small back and forths to take that bent corner down.

Chris L

Originally Posted by Chris L

If it's truly the very corner and only the corner of the tip of the edge, I would determine which side of the razor the tip was bent towards and VERY CAREFULLY and lightly, I would run only that tip back and forth or in circles in short strokes over a fine grit hone for a few passes. I had a spike point quite some time ago that suffered the same problem.. Like yours, the point where the end and the very toe of the edge met was bent so minutely that you could not see the damage without some magnification. IIRC I rubbed that lightly on some 2000 grit wet/dry and the problem was fixed. No honing required since the razor was keen.

So, I would not lay the entire blade flat on a hone as in traditional honing; I would isolate the problem area as above and have only that very small area contact the stone or paper. On 2k grit sandpaper you may only need a few small back and forths to take that bent corner down.

Chris L

This technique seems to have fixed the problem. Thank you so much for the suggestion!