Thread: Uneven spine

I got this project razor to teach myself honing (Cosmo M'F'G' Germany: Extra Hollow Ground). there's a nick in the edge near the heel, so I've been working it on a 1000 grit stone to get that out, but I noticed that the heel was a bit duller than the rest of the blade. I also noticed that the bezel on one side is much narrower than the bezel on the other side. looking even closer, I noticed that the spine is uneven:



Any comments/suggestions?

This can be quite comon i would'nt be able to explain that well but i will try what to do but you may have to alter your stroke or use a narrow hone. I use marker along the edge i normaly roll the the blade in x pattern to remove marker that way i no the edge is hitting the hone the side that is'nt getting on the hone will be thinner bevel say at the area where not making good contact but the oposite side will have a much thicker bevel am i right?

Basicly put marker along your edge and hone flat make sure your hone is flat see where the marker is left and alter your stroke by using rolling x look in wiki on differant strokes i'm not sure but may be you could tape the one side along the spine to even up that spine with electric tape .

theris couple ways to fix thiz problem. The best and my choosed one is don't worry about the bevel width 'as long as you do have bevel on both side of the blade and your cutting edge is straight. I know it will look not nice but blade will do its job. Now if you are perfecionist and want to get perfecbevel on each side of the blade then you can simple turn the blade less bevel side to lower grit stone(depends how much metal you need to remove) 1000 grit will be safest to start' and start making forward and bakword motion strakes until bevel width is same as other side

I am not sure how much work it is but you can regrind the spine a bit to even the two sides.

I have not tried this, but you could tape only the flatter side (left side on your illustration) of the spine. That should raise the angle on this side. Seems easier than rolling x-strokes to me.

Check out this 1961 barber manual excerpt on honing and stropping in the SRP Wiki here.The manual addresses how to get the heel and point as sharp as the center of the blade without creating a frown. I would tape the spine and as hi_bud said not worry about one part of the bevel being wider than the other.

First off, the word you are looking for is "bevel" not bezel. I'm not saying that to be a jerk, you just don't want to start calling it the wrong word and someday make a fool of yourself.

Second, the bevel's are often not the same size, and often if you look down the blade like you have in the picture above, it's not perfectly symmetrical, it's ok. Actually in your picture above you showed it accurately, the bevels cannot be the same size because the razor's grind is not perfectly symmetrical. There is nothing wrong with the razor, it's very common.

What you want to avoid is wearing the spine unevenly from heel to tip. If you were looking at the razor laying flat on a table, you want the wear on the spine to be even the length of the razor.

The "x stroke" will help you solve your problem with some parts of the razor duller than the rest. I haven' found a better way to sharpen the entire length of the razor.