Honing a "military" blade.

Hey guys. Now that I'm out of the Marine Corps, I got gifted this nice straight edge razor from my grandmother. She said it was my grandfather's back when he was in the service.

Anyways, it's pretty beat up as you can see in the pictures. I have a full norton's honing stone set, and I started with the 220 stone to try and bust off a lot of the rust and pitting in addition to getting a bevel set.

After doing 20 circles back and forth a couple times, then taking straight laps (10) at a time, I moved up to the 1k. After a while I was able to get the middle part of the blade to cut arm hairs fairly well, but the heel and toes wasn't able to.

Upon closer look I could tell something was wrong with the spine and the edge. You can see on the spine where the rust was removed. And in the center, the area cleaned up is wider than on the heel and toe. That also seems to be the case, but to a lesser extent on the edge.

Here are the pics.

What should I do from here to correct the issue?

Attachment 47930Attachment 47931Attachment 47932Attachment 47933

it looks like your stabilizer could be lifting the heel above the stone. You have to hone it out until it evens out, or have it reground to bring the edge down. Appl ymagic marker to the bevel and you will see where the blade makes/does not make contact, this should help you figure out how to proceed.

Welcome to SRP and thanks for your service. The marker Stefan recommended is a good idea to see that the edge is making contact with the hone with the stroke you're using. The visible wear from the spine to the edge won't necessarily be the same. That doesn't mean you can't get a proper bevel set.

See what the marker shows you and than do the x strokes and so forth as the SRP Wiki describes in Lynn's pyramid tutorial. If you apply pressure make is light and tweak it toward the edge a bit more than toward the spine. I used 1 layer of electrical tape for quite awhile when I began honing razors. Since that is an heirloom you might want to try that until you feel good about your honing technique.

Sounds good. I'll try the marker and see what happens.

In the meantime, does anyone know of this Mt. Lebanon Peter Ferris Brand?

I can't seem to find anything online about it.

Oh also, now that a lot of the rust and pitting is gone from the edge, should I stick with the 220 for a while, or move up to the 1k? (This is assuming that I'm taking your advice and throwing some tape on the spine from here on out.)

On second thought, before going back to honing the blade, I was going to try and clean it up. I took some steel wool to it last night and got a lot of the rust off of it. Now there's just a bunch of dark spots where the rust used to be. Pitting I assume?

Anyways, I checked the wiki for restoring razors and ran into a snag. There's a section called "After blade clean up". What happened immediately before this step??? The pics previous to this section show the blade in similar condition to what my blade looks like now, but then it's mostly clear of any pitting and nice and shiny. Lol, What happened to it? Was it just MAAS polish, or something more? Do you need special tools for it?

Sorry for all the questions, but this is my first time doing something this extensive. And the motivation is just too high to let alone.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!!!

I ended up just trying out some sand paper 150 grit on it and it seems to be working. I'll have to get something a little finer thought to finish it. There's just one spot that you can see in the picture that's really deep, and I can't seem to eliminate the pitting.

Anyways, I'll throw some tape on it when I get home and start honing.

Should I go all the way to the 220 or just start on the 1k stone?

Also I'll try and post some updated pics now that a lot of that tarnish is gone. :)

I'm interested in this process too as I'll be looking into local antique shops for an old razor soon.

Is there any way you can post pics as you go along in your process? The wiki seems to skip a few steps. And some of the video's I've found that show the inbetween steps show the use of a wheel, not actually anything done by hand.

It does not look like there are ships or a frown to remove, I'd go with the 1k stone.

You does look as if you need to do something with that stabilizer! Once done with that the rest will be easy.

So I did the magic marker test. One side looks good. Even bevel all the way down the edge.

The other edge is the picture. Hardly any honing on the heel or the toe. Is this normal to happen only on one side of the razor? I would think it would be on both sides...Attachment 48122

what kind of stroke did you use?

You can future proof the razor with some judicious grinding at the heel & stabiliser. See link below.
Once you do, however the geometry will change but at least the heel will be on the stone & you can reset the bevel properly.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...rrecting+heels

Sadly I discovered a crack, and upon further inspection and playing with it, the top corner of the blade broke off. :(

It really made me sad, but after looking at it, there wasn't much that would have stopped it from breaking eventually.

Anyways, I guess I'll have to look for another blade. This whole thing has got me pretty interested in shaving. :)

I did have one last question though....The blade itself is actually quite small compared to other straight edges I've seen. Is this because of the brand, or is there a particular type of razor classification that has this characteristic?

Sorry to hear about the blade. :( It sucks when that happens.

But on the positive side you'll have learnt a lot about honing..!

Blades come in all sorts of shapes and sizes from 3/8 width and up to 10/8", which I think is about the biggest blade I've heard of. They'll also vary from hollow ground to full wedge.

All will shave very well and its really personal preference as to which you go for..! :)

Good luck and keep us posted!

Just curious, when they get as thin as 3/8" do they also get proportionately shorter as well? Or is it maybe a coincidence that the razor I have is a "travel size" razor all around?

In any case, I guess the length isn't what's an issue, more of the blade width for my personal preference.

I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for one on the classifieds.