Thread: A question..

The razor should shave arm hair if it was advertised as "shave ready". The ding on the spine will definitely throw off the honing and must be removed. As a tool & die guy, you know what to do! It's the same set of skills for die grinding.

The heat treatment. The heat treatment of these razors may not be as even as one might think. I've honed lots of razors where I could feel a different bite of the stone on different parts of the razor. I spoke to a metallurgist about it and he said that steels aren't consistent from batch to batch and not even always consistent in the same batch. Add heat treating onto that and you can see how variable the outcome can be at times.

Fixing it. First thing I'd recommend doing is looking at the whole razor under at least 60x magnification - heel to toe on both sides and the spine as well. You have to be able to see what's wrong in order to fix it. You may not have to go as coarse as 2k after you see what you've got for an edge. I often start at 4k if the bevel is good and the edge is decent. I really believe that the least amount of honing is best in the long run. Do what's necessary to get the job done.

Originally Posted by BlacknTan

Yes, yet another!

I bought a razor from a gentleman that, by all accounts knows what he is doing. I did not buy it through any of the forums, but this gentleman has been around. The razor was advertised as "Shave ready."
Now, I'm certainly no honemeister and I've only got twenty straight razor shaves under my belt, but I worked my career as a Tool & Die Maker, so I'm not totally clueless either. I have honed a few razors and turned them into great shavers.
I tried to shave with said razor. It shaved alright, but not close and not smooth. Lot's of irritation on my neck.
I tried a little honing myself, because the razor would not shave arm hair.
Shaved with it again... Same thing.
But, I noticed something while honing... The razor would complete it's stroke very smoothly in one direction, but always on the return stroke, it would seem to drag, and would build up lots of metal on one edge of the hone. If I flipped the hone end for end, the other edge would clog with steel, so it's the heel of the razor on the back side causing the problem.
I've been thinking and thinking about this. I took a straightedge to the spine on both sides... Nice and flat both ways.. Finally grabbed a stone (not for honing) and ran it along the flat of the tang up onto the spine. AHAH... it caught a nick... A very slight ding nearly invisible to the eye. Looks as though it had possibly been dropped on the spine.
Now, two things surprise me. One, that heat treated steel as hard as I thought these were will still take a dent, and Two, that a shave ready edge could be put on this razor without noticing this tiny flaw.
Now, I'm not blaming anyone, or at all annoyed that this all occurred.. It's all part of the learning process for me... Payin' my dues, so to speak.
Now the questions...
Could this tiny flaw keep the razor from being honed to a smooth shaving edge?
At this point, should I attempt to rehone myself or send it to a Pro for a solution once and for all.
If I attempt to rehone, should I dull the razor a hair and start again from the 2K level? At this point, it will cut a few arm hairs, but will not shave whatever is in it's path...

Thanks once again for the help...