Thread: help honing my W&B

what attributes would make it a frame back??? i am new enough i just saw the name and the look and bought it. hopefully you guys come up with some more good suggestions cuz just looking at this thing makes me want to shave with it. it just looks cool. but i must be patient.

oh and if anymore pics are needed i will post them for sure.

Framebacks come in two varieties. In one type the spine and blade are two separate pieces and in the other they are one but they both look the same. Usually the blade is very thin and basically flat with the spine contoured. The blade doesn't have the usual profile of a hollow grind or wedge.

Chee, here's an example of the second type of frameback bigspendur is talking about, where a separate thin blade is attached to a heavy frame:





I bought this one (an Engstrom from Sweden) because I seem to favor heavy razors with smiling edges. It was inexpensive, and like bigspendur suggested, the thinner blade of the frameback would be easier to hone up than the choppers I usually struggle with.

Well, the Swedes must've whipped up one stubborn batch of steel that day, because my first clue was how hard it was just to polish the blade to a shine. Being new to honing, it took me so long to put a bevel on such a thin blade that I was sure I was doing something very wrong.

Here's what worked for me on this one: after many strokes on a DMT 1200 it was still like a butter knife, so I taped the spine and started over on a DMT 325, using some pressure on the initial strokes. Once it finally took a bevel on the 325 with progressively lighter rolling X strokes, it moved quickly through the rest of the hone progression without any issues.

Now it's just murderin' sharp, which is great. But the shave feels more like a full hollow than the "wedge-ier" result I had expected. Maybe framebacks are like that, this is my first.

Looks like either a concave grind or the faux-frameback style which some of the Sheffield producers made in the later 1800's. From what I've read, they seem to take a wicked edge.

so saturday night my girlfriends went to bed at 10 and i was still wide awake so i went to work on this thing. i managed to set the bevel nicely and went from the 4k then the 8k using the rolling stroke throughout (but there really wasn't much roll) and i had the thing popping hairs on the whole blade within a couple hours. which felt great. i did however go to the 12k stone next and it didn't work out so well, but it was 2am so i thought i would go back to the norton 4/8k and do a mild pyramid as i don't think i did a whole lot of damage. i can't wait to shave with it though.

BTW i think it is a frame back but it looks like one piece of steel. if i think of it i will take a pic of the end and post it.

Originally Posted by chee16

so saturday night my girlfriends went to bed at 10 and i was still wide awake

Girlfriend(s)! Gah, no wonder you were awake!

Mark

oh man i am glad she doesn't read my post i would be in the dog house. how did i miss that? apparently i am subconciously a player and i didn't even know it.

chee,

Do you have a dial/vernier caliper or micrometer? I'm going to hazard the guess that the spine is a bit thinner at the heel than it is at the tip or middle of the blade. This difference would tend to lift the edge at the heel off a surface when the blade is laid down flat on it. If everything is straight and parallel, the rolling stroke on a hone(s) should make all well.

good luck,

Originally Posted by Bruce

chee,

Do you have a dial/vernier caliper or micrometer? I'm going to hazard the guess that the spine is a bit thinner at the heel than it is at the tip or middle of the blade. This difference would tend to lift the edge at the heel off a surface when the blade is laid down flat on it. If everything is straight and parallel, the rolling stroke on a hone(s) should make all well.

good luck,

i do have a micrometer so i will check it out, though it may take a couple days as it is at the bike shop.

just to keep things updated i shaved with this beast the other day and it worked out nicely. my big problem turned out to be my rolling X stroke technique and the pressure i was using. smoother technique and less pressure paid off. i went back to the 8k for about 30 laps checking every 10 or so and then hit the 12k for about 50 laps as i have been reading about how slow they can be, then the CrOx for 30 laps and the leather. it was nice. i may still refine it a bit but it shaved fine with almost not irritation, still pulled just a tiny bit so i may hit the 12k with slurry and then just water and see what happens.

thanks for all the help.
Wes