Thread: Uneven wave

Now I am getting somewhere. I have just been doing flat strokes, trying to get the entire edge to touch the hone.
It is really closing in now, but this is it for today. Gotta get out. (but first I will have a shave with my other razor )

Now I am closing in. I decided to just try hone out the warp, so that it is totally straight at the edge. I am getting there slowly, but surely. The bevel is not the most even in the world, but I figured that if I put some more effort into this now, it will pay off later. Now it is only about 1/2" in the middle of the blade that isn't shiny when I do the "marker test" and to begin with it was like 1 1/2"
I will post some more when I get a bevel all the way across the blade.

Originally Posted by flyboy

Now I am closing in. I decided to just try hone out the warp, so that it is totally straight at the edge. I am getting there slowly, but surely. The bevel is not the most even in the world, but I figured that if I put some more effort into this now, it will pay off later. Now it is only about 1/2" in the middle of the blade that isn't shiny when I do the "marker test" and to begin with it was like 1 1/2"
I will post some more when I get a bevel all the way across the blade.

Hopefully one of the more experienced honemeisters will speak up but I don't think it's possible to hone out a warp.

What you will end up with is a chisel shaped bevel on the parts where you honed off a lot of metal. It might still shave OK but then again maybe not.

It's your razor but I think you would be better served by learning the proper way to hone a warped blade.

As always AusTexShaver makes good observations.

That razor has a warp, in the sense that the tip and the heel lie not in the same plane as the middle part of the blade. You figured it out quite well. Whether you can hone it out, depends on how severe the warp is. I've tried to explain it in a wiki article about bevel setting. Here's a drawing out of the article:



N°1 shows a view of an unwarped blade. N°2 and n°3 show warped situations. N°2 is what you are trying: ignoring the actual warp by honing the "higher" parts down. This creates a bevel tip (the middle line in the drawings) that's straight and parallel to the spine. The warp itself is resolved by the uneven bevel sides. It works, but if the warp is extreme enough, AusTexShaver is right: one bevel side can become so narrow at the warped region, that it competely dissapears. To the extreme, the razor might even start to develop a frown at that region, because, when finished, the bevel tip might only occupie a space between both bevel lines further down in the blade. For a better understanding, try to imagine what would happen is you were honing a table spoon. It's not difficult to grasp that it would develop an extreme frown, if you honed without repecting its curves. Nonetheless, I'm still an advocate of ignoring the warp, such as you are trying, under the one condition that it is not too severe (the majority of warped razors). In the other case, we must go with n°3. If you set the bevel on a narrow hone, the hone will be able to follow the warp. The bevel tip will no longer be straight, but instead carry the same curve as the warp. The bevel sides will remain even. The X-stroke and its variations is an hybride form of both n°2 and n°3. The narrower the hone the more the result follows the warp, but even on a wide hone, the X-stroke will compensate. But in extreme cases having a narrow hone sometimes is the easiest solution. That's for you to figure out.
If you manage to "ignore" the warp, which is your current course, the advantage is that, once the bevel is set, the razor can be treated as normal during the rest of the honing progression. On the other hand, should you need to refer to a narrower hone for dealing with severe warp, all other hones must be narrow too, because otherwise they can't follow the warp either.

The original wiki article is here:
Bevel-setting in theory and practice - Straight Razor Place Wiki

I think you are doing just fine.
Good luck,
Bart.

Bart,

Thanks for those kind words. I've never professed to be a honemeister so I'm glad you stepped in and explained what's really going on. On every razor I've ever honed that had more than about an inch of warp area in the middle (as the original post described) I always ended up with a frown if I persisted in ignoring the warp and continued to hone as if the razor was not warped.

Perhaps you could explain why a frown is a bad thing.

That 4k is a major test of my patience. This thing takes time!
It seems that the hopes of getting this thing sorted out is marginal, the bevel almost disappeared at the toe and there is still not much of a bevel on the toe on the other side. Will The bevel "grow" a bit in with if i continue? And does a rolling x work on a 3" wide stone? It is a combo 4/8 so it isn't easy to use the side here.
I am ****ed at Dovo now, they could have given me a razor without a warp.

You're in good company...there are several of us with brand new Dovo's that aren't too happy. I kept mine because I like a challenge and I wanted to practice honing a severly warped blade...but most of the other guys have asked the vendor they bought the razor from for a refund or exchange. Depending on where you bought it from that would probably be the easiest thing to do...or you could send Dovo an email. Maybe if enough of us started doing that Dovo might get the message and tighten up their quality control...or figure out where the lapse was and try to recall the batch that has problems.

A rolling X does work on a Norton stone but you have to be really conscience of not putting any pressure on the blade as you are working a small portion at a time. It's probably easiest with the blade at around a 45 degree angle to the stone and watch the wave...the wave will tell you if the stroke is right.

As for the bevel "growing" what normally happens is you get a very narrow bevel width on the concave side and a wide (or at least wider) bevel on the convex side. Figure 2 in Bart's post shows that better than I could ever describe it.

I'm not sure what to make of the bevel disappearing at the toe. I can say that a normal sized bevel isn't very wide and maybe you have removed more metal than you think.

Based upon your description, I think that razor is severely warped.
If that's true, you'll be honing a very long time on the Norton 4K, and by the time you manage to get the entire edge lying flat on the hone, the bevel will be practically none existent at the middle part of one side of the razor. The heel and toe will be very wide. On the other side it will be the opposite. The razor will probably develop a frown. While a "smiling" edge offers advantages for shaving, a "frowning" edge may diminish the abilities of the razor to maintain good skin contact.
The rolling X-stroke will start to introduce a smiling curve into the edge, which counteracts with the frown, but it will take you longer to complete the bevel-work on your Dovo.
This is a situation where I always reach for my narrow hones, which changes the rules of the game, as I tried to explain in my previous post. What you can try is to put your combo stone on its side and hone on top of that. Never mind that it's mixed grit. We're setting a bevel, having a bit of 8K scratches running through the 4K ones doesn't do harm to a good bevel. Just make sure the side of your Norton is lapped flat and the edges are chamfered a bit.
It will make a big difference, honing on that narrow Norton, and the bevel on your warped razor will develop much better.
The only disadvantage is that you'll need to stay on narrow hones for the entire honing session.. To accommodate for that, it's eventually necessary to lap a very lightly chamfered, narrow strip at one side on the 8K (about 1/2"). The remaining wide surface can be used for regular razors, the narrow strip for dealing with problem cases. You could do the same at the 4K surface, but I bet the mixed grit side of the hone works just as well and you can try that first without the need to make any further modifications to the Norton.

Bart.