Thread: Tips for honing a bowed blade?

I tried honing a bowed blade flat . I gave up when I started running out of metal on the spine . I still have it . It's a Wade & Butcher Bow razor (aptly named)

I'd rather not buy a bunch of 1 inch hones. I decided to purchase a 1x1x24 piece of balsa wood, which I'm going to treat with Dovo Red, Dovo Black, Thiers '10,000' grit and then ChromeOx. If I feel really ambitious, I may even make a handle of sorts. I'll report my results!

Thank you all for your suggestions.

Originally Posted by MrMike

I'd rather not buy a bunch of 1 inch hones. I decided to purchase a 1x1x24 piece of balsa wood, which I'm going to treat with Dovo Red, Dovo Black, Thiers '10,000' grit and then ChromeOx. If I feel really ambitious, I may even make a handle of sorts. I'll report my results!

Thank you all for your suggestions.

Good idea. It should get you in a position to shave
with it and not fail if you try to correct it bit by bit.

Please do let us know how it works for you.

Well I ended up purchasing a few pieces of 1x1x24 balsa, and applied Dovo Red, Black, and Chrome Ox, leaving the fourth side untreated.

I did 20x20x20x20 and it produced good results! The only problems seem to be that the Dovo paste is very 'slippery' on balsa so its a bit hard to strop on when I'm used to leather/fabric; also the pastes seem to want to migrate around to the other sides a bit. But so far, good shave. If it keeps working out, I might make a nice handle and perhaps put a piece of leather on the plain side.

This question is exactly why I picked up my narrow bout coticule. I spent the coin to buy a full set of Shaptons and didn't want to buy a bunch of hones to handle the warped blades that I come across.