Thread: Honing shouldered blades

When honing a blade that has a shoulder do you keep the shoulder off the hone or hone it with the whole blade on the hone like to would a shoulderless blade?

robert

Angle the heel forward a little so the shoulder clears the hone and then use your normal stroke.

This is what many old barber manuals and barber hone inserts indicate is the recommended honing stroke.

Robert:

A shoulder should actually make no difference at all when honing, it should not touch the hone... In fact if the shoulder does touch the hone something is slightly off... What kind of razor is this??? DA/GD Chinese razors are known for this, so are some of the older Sheffields...
In general you should never feel a difference on a razor with a shoulder...

Also canting the heel forward on a razor with an "off" shoulder actually lifts the edge worse....

I like to keep the shoulder off the hone

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Robert:

A shoulder should actually make no difference at all when honing, it should not touch the hone... In fact if the shoulder does touch the hone something is slightly off... What kind of razor is this??? DA/GD Chinese razors are known for this, so are some of the older Sheffields...
In general you should never feel a difference on a razor with a shoulder...

.

Glenn is right. In my opinon
you can hone it out or grind it.
Heel forward is PITA you should be doing Perfect strokes and it is time consuming.
Hope this helps.

It was an old sheffield. I took you guys advice and put the shoulder on the hone. It wasn't as much of a problem as I thought it would be. I was having trouble getting the blade sharp but its shave ready now. OR at least as shave ready as I can get it by myself.

Thanks for the help guys...

well at least it is shaving - glad it worked out for you. you might try next time keeping the shoulder off the hone and see if that helps any

good luck!

I don't like to hone into the shoulder, and if I had to I would grind it down on a DMT first. This is part of why I prefer honing shoulderless or single ground blades (if I had my choice...).

Ya know --- if we had bolsters on both ends of the blade we'd never have to worry about running the razor off the hone ---

Insights like that call for at least another one ---