Thread: Frown removal/repair

So today i decided to have a go at a razor I have been dreading to hone for the last 6 months.
It was a full hollow blade 15/16" wide, that had a serious frown 2/3 out towards the tip.

Further more it had quite uneven honewear and the frown seemed like it was dented on one of the sides. In other words, on one side the bevel looked pretty even, the other seemed to sort of miss material to hone.

I have been honing a lot lately, I must have honed a couple hundred razors these last few months, but this one scared me. I didn't know quite how to attack this.

In preparing for this job, I spent many hours reading and watching videos of the pro's honing on various problem razors.
Gssixgun and the others who have posted their videos deserves a big thank you!
They sure were helpful to me when doing this job.

So here is what I did.

First I decided to get rid of the uneven honewear.
I used quite some pressure, focusing on the parts that had the least wear. This also meant honing more on one side than the other.
The Chosera 600 is a pretty fast worker, but I did spend quite some time on this to get it done.
Much more time than what I would have guessed before starting out with this beat-up razor.

Next, I taped the spine and went to work on the frown.
That meant more metal removal, and metal removal at the right places and the right side.
Again I used the Chosera 600.
It was challenging to do this correctly, using uneven and quite heavy pressure was unfamiliar territory.
Well, after a good while, the frown kept getting smaller and smaller, and the hard work was soon done.

I think I spent well over an hour and a half on these 2 steps. I would have thought there would be no steel left, but to my surprise, the razor has lost only about 1,5-2,5mm in total width on this rather heavy job. I took it from about 23,3 to about 21,5mm.

After that is was easy going.
Set the bevel, sharpened and polished it up before going to my favorite finisher.
All this was done with one layer of tape, as this razor has seen enough of hone wear!

Sadly, I had already shaved today, but I had to take it for a spin anyway, and it felt just like new.

I actually feel a bit proud right now, I have managed to rescue a beat up POS, and made that into a fine shaving instrument once again.
Honing a well kept and pretty much new razor is one thing, a problem razor is a whole new set of challenges.

Anyway, I just felt like sharing

This is the part that stood out to me in this thread

Birnando: "I have been honing a lot lately, I must have honed a couple hundred razors these last few months, but this one scared me. I didn't now quite how to attack this."

You built up your experience first, then finally tackled the hard one, that was smart !!!
Glad it worked out for you, but I think it was experience that won the challenge, and you should be proud of it, you earned it

Great to hear about your success. It gives me hope.

I have a W&B with a terrible frown and very uneven honewear. The previous owner must have used a ton of pressure pressing down on the middle of the spine. I'm still working on it in the hopes of being able to save it. I also have a W. Greaves that will be a challenge. It appears to be warped.

Thanks, again.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

This is the part that stood out to me in this thread

Birnando: "I have been honing a lot lately, I must have honed a couple hundred razors these last few months, but this one scared me. I didn't now quite how to attack this."

You built up your experience first, then finally tackled the hard one, that was smart !!!
Glad it worked out for you, but I think it was experience that won the challenge, and you should be proud of it, you earned it

Thanks Glen.
I truly appreciate the kind words!

I enjoyed reading this post, immensely actually. Rising to a good and unfamiliar challenge is usually, IME, a great learning experience (with anything in life). I'm really glad the razor came together for you B.

Very cool.

Good work Birnando. I've tackled a few of those but resolved to pass on any in that condition in the future. Ain't worth the trouble.

Did you try grinding off the steel with the spine raised, almost like a perpendicular angle? I went spine-first as it seemed more stable for such a drastic angle. I've used that to reduce a slight frown at the tip on a DMT 8x3 coarse (325 grit) and it worked like a charm. Fast, too.

Originally Posted by AxelH

Did you try grinding off the steel with the spine raised, almost like a perpendicular angle? I went spine-first as it seemed more stable for such a drastic angle. I've used that to reduce a slight frown at the tip on a DMT 8x3 coarse (325 grit) and it worked like a charm. Fast, too.

That's an interesting idea!

No, I did pretty much keep all parts of the blade on the hone the whole time.
When remowing the frown, the spine was taped, so I was able to lean pretty heavy on it.
I suspect that given the amount of directed pressure I used, it was pretty much the same thing really.

Did you feel that the method you described required more stabilizing control? It sound like a very fast solution, but also something that could possibly go a wee bit wrong when not performed correctly.
Well, I do hone my kitchen knifes that way, so I guess it would be more than doable.
Again, thanks for the tip, I will definitely add that to the arsenal of honing tricks in the future.

A DMT fine & holding the blade at approximately a 45 is how I handle the un-even & frowning blades as well, but I still use a "cutting" motion & just light pressure.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

A DMT fine & holding the blade at approximately a 45 is how I handle the un-even & frowning blades as well, but I still use a "cutting" motion & just light pressure.

I can definitely see this being a fast way to fix a frown.
Thank you!

Just a thought though;
You are using this more radical approach only after you have fixed the problems with an uneven spine, right?
The two errors seemed to me, in this case, to be very much related to each other.