Thread: Honing a Wedge for the First Time

hmmm.... based on that last comment, it seems like I am going to try and spend a little more time on the 1k. I don't have it popping arm hairs yet.

I just know that sometimes it takes forever to get wedges right where you want them, but when you do they shave really nice.

These smiling wedges take ages if you try to hone them on 2 or 3 inch wide hones. You really need a narrower hone. In the olden days most honing was done on narrow hones anyway. Wide (natural) hones were simply more expensive! Synthetic hones were only introduced much later. If you have an old, used razor it most likely was honed with a narrow hone.

If you use a wide hone on a smile you'll find you do not hone the whole length of the bevel. Do the bevel marking test and you'll see imediately if that's the case.

You wil have to remove more metal honing a wedge. Presuming you apply similar pressure when honing on a narrow or wide hone the pressure per inch of bevel will be more if you use a narrow hone, so that'll speed up things. When you start popping hairs reduce the amount of slurry and finish without.

If you do not want to cut your Norton up use a narrow coticule or Belgian blue with lots of slurry.

My 2 cts.

Hi there!

For those of you interested in my progression, I can say that I reach the HHT point..

Furthermore, be sure that your edge is totally even from point to the back.. My blade was warped and I had to fix it...

Those wedge razor are great shavers if you have a strong beard, it worths to spend some more time on it...

Take care!

Originally Posted by loueedacat

That is what I'm finding. I have two wedges. One was very comfy after honings without tape but didnt' give a smooth shave - that prompted this post. The other which I honed without tape and shaved with after this post actually gave a pretty good shave, but it took five passes.

Last night I took the first one and put on two layers of electrical tape and went back to shapton 1k, blue, then yellow/green escher and got a great shave this morning. Still took 3-4 passes and I usually only need two pases, so it's not where I want it, but using tape (and spending far less time) got me 90% of the way to where I'm going.

I'm going to try tape on the blade that I got ok even without tape and see how that goes.

boy the wedge I used tape on now shaves wonderful and is so silky smooth. not sure I'll be picking up my 3X as expensive quarter grind le grelot very much! But the two layers of tape made it easy for me, a honing near rookie, to get a smiling wedge W&B to work beautifully with not too much effort. I did a little rolling X, a litle professional stroke, a little whatever worked, but man it's smooth and comfy.

The hardest thing about the old W&B wedges has always been that usually the shoulders are honed down unevenly on both sides and also the wear on both sides doesn't match up which means setting a new bevel can really be a pain. Tape can help here, but if used, unless you remove it and correct the shoulder with the bevel, you will be in for a long session. I have always had the most success in honing these utilizing a 45 degree angle X stroke after the bevel is set.

Have fun,

Lynn

Originally Posted by Lynn

The hardest thing about the old W&B wedges has always been that usually the shoulders are honed down unevenly on both sides and also the wear on both sides doesn't match up which means setting a new bevel can really be a pain. Tape can help here, but if used, unless you remove it and correct the shoulder with the bevel, you will be in for a long session. I have always had the most success in honing these utilizing a 45 degree angle X stroke after the bevel is set.

Hi Lynn,
sorry if I'm being stupid, can you explain this more? At what point do you remove the tape and correct the shoulder? And by correct the shoulder, you mean focus especially on removing metal from it? I'm trying to picture this...

and as it happens I'm currently having a devil of a time with an old W & B wedge. It has a beautifully even bevel, escher-polished, is passing HHT, and shaves like &?*!.

Wouldn't you know....with my heavy beard, I love wedges, and they're the biggest PITA to hone....looks like I'd better learn some of these techniques.