Thread: Warped Blade!! :(

Hello all again,

I hope I'm posting this in the proper forum. Here goes,

I have a German Fromm 5/8 Straight which I purchased a couple months back. I'm relatively new to straight razor shaving but I have previously honed a 5/8 Dovo by setting the bevel on a 1k and working up to polish on my 8k Norton which passed my personal shave test easily. So I'm sure the problem here is not my technique.

The Fromm was shave ready on purchase and I have used it for a while now, but it eventually had to be honed. So to the 4k I went and noticed to my horror that ( right hand dominant ) on the pull strokes the edge and spine contacted fine but on the push strokes the toe end of the blade does not contact the stone from about the middle of the edge to the toe. Thinking it was my posture I attempted to meet the toe edge to the stone and noticed that now the heel edge was no longer contacting the stone

I've tested it flat on a machine grade steel surface and the same results so it isn't my stones. The blade is warped

My question to those with higher knowledge is this; how common of a problem is this and did I get suckered on buying it, and is there any way to remedy this problem? Or if it is common, what do more skilled persons do to hone a warped blade?

Oh and the warp is so minimal that, like I said, on the convexed edge side using the marker test during honing I'm getting uniform bevel except in the middle where it thins down a bit obviously because of the curve in the spine. Same on the concaved edge side ( now the warp side curving up to the ceiling if that helps ) the toe edge marker barely even gets scratched off by the hone

Sorry for the long post but this is driving me insane.

I don't think there is a single razor that's perfectly straight in the mathematical sense, so the question is mostly to what degree.

It's hard to say how common without knowing the extent of warp, but from your description you can have a bevel across the whole blade, so that's not too uncommon.

The solution is to hone each part of the edge subsequently since you can't have all of it lay on a hone at the same time, but from your post it seems that you can have the heel and the tip lay on the hone separately.

So you perform a stroke that at beginning has the heel in contact with the hone and at the end the tip. Common way to do that it is to use x-pattern, scything and slight variation in the pressure.

There are many ways to accomplish it so you'll have to just find something that you can do.

Gugi is telling you true. Take a magic marker and mark the bevel on both sides. Let it dry a minute and do a few strokes and watch how the marker is removed ..... or not removed. This will give you an idea of a stroke that will work to make contact with the whole bevel. Rolling x or 45 degree heel leading are a couple of examples. If you have a narrow hone sometimes that works well in your situation. Like Gugi said again... hard to say without seeing it firsthand.

In addition to the magic marker and rolling X stroke, I've learned this trick: mainly because I was never quite sure how much to "roll" the blade.

Once you've done a regular stroke with the marker on, start to do rolling strokes.

After every stroke check the marker. You should start seeing more of the marker come off at the ends. Once you see that the marker is off at each end, you know you're rolling enough. Just keep the rolliing minimal at first, then incrementally increase it.

I would re-apply a couple times to make sure you're doing it right and to set that "muscle memory" for the stroke so that you can do it every time.

After a while you'll be able to feel which part of the blade is gliding on the stone in your hands. You should also be able to hear it.

Hope this helps!

What I find useful is to watch the wave of water in front of the edge, it'll show you any differences of how the edge lays on the hone. I think my hand naturally compensates and does what the stroke needs to be, I certainly am not thinking how exactly I need to vary the pressure, I simply look and pay attention at the wave.

I don't think you need to rework the whole bevel with a moderate pressure to make it uniform on both sides, either.
From practical point of view, as far as shaving goes, it doesn't matter at all if the bevel is the same across the edge or from one side to the other.

HairSplitter;

Straight razors having a bit of warp in the blade to a greater or lesser degree are not unknown and unless they are warped some outrageous amount I wouldn't say that you were 'taken' when you bought this blade.

Any perfection of straightness of the blade won't actually affect the quality of shave that the blade delivers, so the only trick is to be able to hone the blade properly. I go along with the suggestions so kindly offered up by the others in this thread.

In addition, do be aware that it is more difficult to hone a warped blade on a wide honing stone. I am fortunate in that I have a number of hones of varying widths. The smaller width of a narrower hone will contact less of the razor's edge at any one time and so the effect of the warp will be less.

As a final solution, I also have some small hand stones (slices of Belgian coticle) which will also do the trick when a blade is either too warped or else so deep of smile that a regular hone will not serve.

- Ignatz