Thread: Help: stubborn Torrey heel busting my *#%!

Hey all, also, i’m having a bear of a time geting the bevel set on this one razor I wonder if you can help. it’as a beautiful old torrey with slick lines and killer faux-tortoise scales. when it came to me it had quite a frown, but it was still rather sharp so I tried honing it without correcting the frown. I managed to get it pretty close to shave-ready, but ultimately wasn’t satisfied with it and decided to correct the frown and start from scratch. But somehow there is this one area I just cannot get the bevel set on – and, oddly, I think that area was fine in the “frown era” hone. The area starts about 1/16” or 1/8” from the heel, and runs about a centimeter. Unlike the rest of the edge, it doesnt shave arm hair. The bevel is noticeably narrower there than on the rest of the edge, though still substantial; oddly, the spinewear is not narrower there. I tried EVERYTHING I could, every stroke possible, every hone possible, to focus on that area. I ended up wearing out the razor a lot – the spinewear has almost doubled, all to no avail. I’ve attached some pictures, though I’m not sure you can see anything of much use. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Mijbil, I moved your post from hones to honing where I think you will have more exposure and feedback. Your photos did not come up yet. If you click browse to upload you have to then scroll to the right of the browse buttons to hit the upload button. Did you 'breadknife' the blade to get rid of the frown ?

Sounds like some of the frown may still be there towards the heel, back to square one! BTW, you should try taping the spine to avoid spinewear.

THanks, Jimmy. I'm so used to posting in "Hones" I forgot there was a honing forum Yes, I did breadknife to remove the frown. I'm pretty sure I did remove the entire frown - checked by laying it on the edge and checking for light getting through, BUT even if I didn't, my various attempts to focus just on the heel should still have been able to hone that area. However, now that the photos are up you should be able to see that the frown isn't there. My apologies for not checking that they were correctly uploaded.

And, yes, I know that I could tape the spine - I suppose I'm just lazy. If I were doing this on a blade a really valued I would. Plus that's not ideal for blade geometry - the spine and the edge are *supposed* to both wear, as far as I understand it?

PS - dont know if any of you noticed my post a few weeks ago about trouble I was have with scratches on the blade face, especially with DMTs - though I have *almost* entirely solved the problem (it did have to do with honing off the edge), you can see examples of the scratches in these photos. The little ones, 2-3mm long, starting from the edge and running toward the spine.

I feel the rumblings of another Tapefield and McNo-Tape feud coming. I hope I'm wrong.

I'd use a magic marker to make sure you're hitting that spot right. Also, I'd try heel leading circles on the 1K (or whatever you're setting the bevel with). That's what I'd do anyway...

+1 on the magic marker, try different strokes and see which one works best.
Also as nun2sharp said there might be some frown left but the magic marker will help you find out what the issue is.

yes, I did try circles, and every other way I know to focus attention on the heel. I didnt use magic marker in this case, because I *know* which area isnt getting honed right. The question is, why, and what can I do to fix it? I've had wickedly curving sheffields and framebacks where I had to do all sorts of acrobatics to get the heel properly, but for some reason none of them are working here. And btw, I'm using a Naniwa 2K primarily - although I also tried my DMT Fine and Extra-Fine to see if it would make any difference (it didnt)....

have you seen the bevels under magnification? Are they nice and flat or there is a double bevel in that area?

I dont have a good way to magnify the razor enough to see that, I think - just a loupe. But anyways, if that were the case it might ex[lain why it's not as sharp there, but I dont see how it would explain why it is resistignng honing there - because the steps I have taken *Should* have rebevelled that area....