Thread: Chipping on the edge

I bought this razor off ebay, a Simmons hdwe Keen Kutter. It's a nice razor but it came really dull. While trying to hone it up I noticed that the edge was chipping away near the tip of the blade. Does anyone know the cause of this and what I can do to correct it??

What hone are you using to hone it up? Are you trying to set a new bevel?

I'm using a Norton 4000/8000, and yeah, right now I'm trying to set the bevel.

Does the blade have pitting or tiny little holes you can see in the blades surface?
It's a common problem on carbon steel blades that have rusted badly, but not a usual problem on stainless blades.

Originally Posted by FLYBYU44

I bought this razor off ebay, a Simmons hdwe Keen Kutter. It's a nice razor but it came really dull. While trying to hone it up I noticed that the edge was chipping away near the tip of the blade. Does anyone know the cause of this and what I can do to correct it??

It's all according to how deep the chips are. It will take a very long time with the Norton 4K. A 1K would be a much better choice for repair like that. This one might be a candidate for the bread knife treatment to get rid of the chips.

bj

If you haven't already, be sure to relieve the edges of the stone as part of your lapping process. A small radius or chamfer on the edges can help eliminate problems as the blade passes over the edge when you are making your stroke. Theoretically, if the stone is flat and the blade is straight (and held perfectly flat on the hone) it shouldn't make any difference, but I like to have a small radius on my hones.

Go with a coarser stone and less pressure to grind past chips. I had an old W&B once that wouldn't stop chipping now matter how delicately I worked on it.

X

Thanks for the tips guys!

I assume that you looked at it under magnification when you got it ? If it didn't have chips at that time and the chips came from honing perhaps it is a pressure issue ? Were you bearing down on it ? If it had chips to start with you can hone them out flat with patience and persistence. I have breadknifed a few but it can take as much honing to get the bevel back as it would have to just flat hone it to start with . Sometimes more sometimes less.

Like XMan said, I've encountered a razor where it just kept microchipping. I couldn't figure out why it it wouldn't take a sharpening until I bought one of those radio shack magnified loupes. I'd see the microchipping, hone it, get more chips. I tried to do feather light strokes on a higher stone to no effect.

I kept wondering if it got de-tempered (if that's a word), or if something happened to the steel to crystallize it or something. Maybe it was just age and deteriation. It was an ebay cheapie (not a Pakistan razor), so I just tossed it into the mug with the other troubled citizens of my collection in the hopes of someday solving the puzzle.

cass