Thread: Warped Blade?

Warped blade are not as uncommon as you may think. The heat treating process does it. The thinner the steel, the more likely it will warp. I'm pretty sure razors were either only partially ground or not ground at all before the heat process took place. After they were tempered, a different process, then they were ground. No way could they have been ground to their normal thin profile and then heat treated.

I have knifemaker friends who do their folders this way to ensure the blades do not warp. Warped blades can be fixed. Use a big vise.

Put the blade parallel to the top of the jaws near the surface. Vertically insert one wood dowel on each "low" side of the blade at the spine. Then insert a vertical dowel on the opposide side of the blade at the tangent of the "high" side on the spine.

Crank the vise shut until you go a little past the curvature of the bend. Practice on some junkers first. Do a little at a time and keep checking to see if the blade is straight.

Tip: Tape the dowels in place on the blade because you will need 5 hands otherwise to get them where they need to go.

Another thing you can try is using a magic marker in the edge of your razor and then try honing. If the marker comes off in some places and not others and your sure your hone is flat then you know your not making consistant contact with the hone.

This oughta be the "sticky" TIP OF THE DAY". What a great tidbit of knowledge to have.

I just finished honing an old composite frameback with a twisted spine piece so that the blade described a slight helix. The "signature" of this one was interesting - the hone only wanted to touch the ends of the blade and not the middle, even though the blade had a minor but noticeable smile to it. I was able to get a basic bevel by combining the rock-and-roll motion with a sort of corkscrew twist, but could never get the entire edge to the hair popping stage using just the stone. I punted and finished the edge on the pasted strops, it felt like the slight give of the leather helped compensate for a less-than-perfect corkscrew/rock/roll motion. A pasted hanging strop would have probably worked even better.