Thread: Honing a razor with a smile

My Gold Dollar razor has a smile, and when I asked Ken how he hones them he says he uses a sweeping motion.

When the time comes, I'm wondering if there are any instructions on the Web or in the wiki on how to do this, or should I or one of the honemeisters just reset the bevel to provide a straight edge?

Originally Posted by ziggy925

My Gold Dollar razor has a smile, and when I asked Ken how he hones them he says he uses a sweeping motion.

When the time comes, I'm wondering if there are any instructions on the Web or in the wiki on how to do this, or should I or one of the honemeisters just reset the bevel to provide a straight edge?

Check out page 24 of the barber manual excerpt here in the SRP Wiki help files. Then read the whole thing.

+1 for Jimmy. It helped me a lot

There's also a honing motion called "rolling x" (see the wiki about honing for this), but probably requires practice to get right. You might be better off trying to start your honing from a straight edge.

Smile is actually something that some people try to achieve in their blades and some blades are designed smiling, so I wouldn't ruin a happy razor. Besides, if you are planning to send it to honemeister, why not let him hone the smile?

I always smile when I'm honing. Sometimes I even hum.



Sorry, couldn't resist.

Originally Posted by ursus

...I wouldn't ruin a happy razor...

I like that. LOL

+1 to all the above.

There's a lot of good stuff in the Wiki about honing a smiler. I know there's video's around here somewhere as well (possibly the Video subforum in General) or in the Wiki.

If you want to practice, I would look into picking up a quality blade on ebay for a decent price. These can be had fairly cheap ($20 and under.)

If you do this, I would ask one of the more experienced members to take a look at the auction pics for you to make sure it's not going to be problematic for you to practice honing.

Many qualified ppl can be found in the Chat pretty much anytime of day, and I'm sure they would be happy to help ya out. PMs also work too

It does not matter if your honing a razor with a smile or a straight edge if you watch the water flow in front of the edge moving from heel to toe then your will be using a rolling motion, that is you will be moving the point of contact of the edge and the hone from the heel to the toe. Then adding the X motion is simple. The "sweep" is simply moving from a starting heel leading angle to a ending angle that is perpendicular (90 degrees) at the end of the stroke.

Hope this helps,

this thread got my attention, and I read thru the wiki barbers manual on honing, it said that a razor should have a slight smile too it and is that what most people try to achive? lets say I have a mint or new razor with a straight edge heel to point/toe should I be putting a smile on it or is this a personal choice? I usually dont lead my razors unless they require a modified stroke to contact the edge of an allready smiley or uneven blade what do you all do? Im gonna try it on one of mine anyway as an experiment. what are your thoughts

Originally Posted by randydance062449

It does not matter if your honing a razor with a smile or a straight edge if you watch the water flow in front of the edge moving from heel to toe then your will be using a rolling motion, that is you will be moving the point of contact of the edge and the hone from the heel to the toe. Then adding the X motion is simple. The "sweep" is simply moving from a starting heel leading angle to a ending angle that is perpendicular (90 degrees) at the end of the stroke.

Hope this helps,

I find most if not all blades need some kind of rolling motion as randy says how much depends i have several 5/8 dovos with round points i have to roll slightly towards toe to just follow the bevel round slightly in some cases i have to start heal down, i use marker this tells me every thing plus i watch the water in front of my edge keep it consistant then i no my stroke is good.