Thread: Removed a frown...Now trouble!!!

Ok I have a 7/8 Hollow ground and I successfully remove the frown by honeing it out on a Norton 220 for a long time. I did put one layer of tape on the spine. I changed the tape and moved up to the 1k to set the bevel. But after a while of honeing, the bevel is coming up all screwed up. On the stamped side of the blade the bevel starts ok at the heal and tapers to nothing at about 3/4 of the way to the toe and is doing the exact opposite on the other side. I go back down to the 220 to try to correct the straightness of the blade for a while and then lapped the hones and placed the razor on it to check the edge for straightness and it was straight. So i go back to the 1k and do like 20 laps and its doing the same thing again. I have no idea what to do. Maybe the spine has terribly uneven hone wear? I hope this made sense, does anyone have any suggestions?
Tony B
This is the razor b4 I removed frown

You know IME with frowns there is uneven hone wear at the spine, usually mostly in the center but extending from point to heel. When you get the frown out you still have the uneven honewear to deal with. Your bevel will be uneven and that is a given. If you flat honed rather than breadknifed you will be able to set a bevel with less effort but don't expect it to be even.

I suspect if you removed the tape and did circles until the relationship between the bevel and the spine was evened out you might have a more symmetrical bevel with ugly spine wear but I don't know that it would shave any better than the uneven bevel you're getting now. Just IMHO.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

You know IME with frowns there is uneven hone wear at the spine, usually mostly in the center but extending from point to heel. When you get the frown out you still have the uneven honewear to deal with. Your bevel will be uneven and that is a given. If you flat honed rather than breadknifed you will be able to set a bevel with less effort but don't expect it to be even.

I suspect if you removed the tape and did circles until the relationship between the bevel and the spine was evened out you might have a more symmetrical bevel with ugly spine wear but I don't know that it would shave any better than the uneven bevel you're getting now. Just IMHO.

Whats IMHO? I suspect it is due to the uneven hone wear on the spine. It would be no more worse for the wear, I think I'll try to even the spine up as you suggested or use it to scrape gaskets off when working on my old Hog. Either or thanks for the suggestion.
Tony

IMHO = In my humble opinion .

I think that uneven hone wear is certainly the main cause, but I have seen so many frowns that it makes me wonder why somebody would concentrate on one spot.

Inexperience is certainly a main contender, but some of the frowns I've seen have been on razors owned by the old time pro barbers that appear to have been left untouched in the intervening years.

Maybe a slight distortion of the blade during tempering or whatever caused a bulge on one side and a hollow on the other side in some cases, and the owner had no choice but to concentrate honing at that area to get a bevel on both sides of the blade? Maybe...

Regards,
Neil

I'll tell you something. I have the exact same blade as you have there and when I got it years ago it had been restored and rescaled by a guy who is a very respected razor maker but this was before he was making razors and the blade though very clean has very bad spine wear and it has about the the most ****eyed bevel I have ever seen in any razor. However the fact is it's one hell of a fantastic shaver so the moral is don't worry about uneven bevels.

Jimmy did pointed out the exact problem.
Your problem was frown caused by uneven spine wear.
what you have done is fixed visual problem which you can see and actually have not done anything about the real problem.
Now you will need to go back to 220 k and work more then you expected ( hone without TAPE) and take whole uneven hone wear out on the spine. after that you should end up a big spine wear and your edge will be true edge.
good luck

My feeling is 220 is not for the novice without having been reminded of the great need to lap often.

When you get to going; trying to make some repair it is all too easy to not consider lapping esp. as much as soft friable 220 needs.

The 1k (when flat + stays flat longer) will cut a different line if 220 is not kept in check.

I just bought a blade that is just like what Neil describes. the edge is warped so that one side the bevel is non continuous and on the opposite side the bevel becomes double wide, in the middle 1/3 of the blade

With this condition it is quite easy to see how a frown develops. The solution, I think, is the rolling X and some other directed pressure strokes.

To fix the frown I'd probably do some breadknifing and hone strokes to fair- back and forth between the two methods til true.

it probably would help to hone some w/o tape to see where that line lay as well. Then you can really assess what's the why

I agree with the stated causes...uneven spine wear..... but my solution is to just live with the uneven bevels. Attempting to correct the spine thickness to the point where the spine has a uniform thickness is difficult.....anyone have a surface grinder? and a lot of measuring skill?

Just my $.02,

I cannot see the uneven hone wear you guys keep mentioning. I understand the blade has been polished and I can see some funny effect near the toe. But heavy wear there would be odd considering the toe is wide.

Who can explain?