Grinding down the bevel?

I've got this eBay razor that is confusing me. It's a 6/8 J. Allison that had a big chip in the edge when I got it. It's almost a wedge, maybe a 1/4 grind.

I worked it for a while on my 4K Norton to get rid of the chip, and I noticed an odd bevel pattern forming. (I taped the spine with electrical tape during this.)

On one side, the bevel seems pretty even. On the other, in the middle the bevel is pretty wide, maybe near 1/8", while near the toe and heel it's almost nonexistent.

The blade seems to have a smile, so back and forth honing on the Norton doesn't seem to get things evenly.

Would it be worth my while to try to remove the current bevel by using a 90-degree angle on some coarse sandpaper, then start from scratch with a flat edge with no bevel?

Any tips for doing this? Will I wreck the razor?

I know a smile isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's beyond my honing abilities to work with one at this point.

Also, what could be causing this? Is it something I could correct, by, say, selectively wearing part of the spine or something?

I have this same problem...90% of all the wedges (1/4 hollow or less) I've ever had to sharpen developed the same problem you're talking about. One thing that helps is to concentrate on your stroke. It's hard to not put too much pressure on them, to speed things up, because they take friggin' forever to hone. Also, try angling your blade 45 degrees to the hone (laying flat, point the toe, or front of the blade) at one corner, and pull straight down. Sometimes, it helps to do "circles" (make sure you do the same number on both sides) to remove metal quickly, after which you go back to the 45 degree stroke. I spoke with an old timer expert, and he said this problem existed with the wedges because they were, for the most part, hand ground, which led to a bit of inconsistency. I have actually gotten to where I can regrind the 1/4 hollows (7/8 or less only, though) to remove hone wear, and to even up the spine/edge, and have done so on a couple of my recent resto projects, rescuing some seriously worn razors. They'll never be easy to hone to shaving sharpness, IMO, but hopefully these suggestions will help a bit.

I wouldn't blunt the edge, as you suggested, because it's too much trouble to get it back, and you cause excessive wear (they're hard enough to sharpen when they're perfect), and selectively wearing the spine is a "Kentucky windage" proposition at best. Try the above and see if it doesn't help a bit. And use electrical tape on the spine while doing the rough work...it'll save wear, and you're not changing tape every 18 seconds.

Joe's answer is right on the money. The only other method is to use a narrow hone, approx 1-1 1/2 inch wide. However it is not reasonable to expect everyone to have multiple hones.

Would it help him to get it reground by that cutlery outfit Joe Chandler used a few months ago? Wouldn't that clean up the inconsistencies in the original grind? Or is the problem that the sheer amount of honing that's needed, and this is exposing problems in the OP's honing technique?

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Originally Posted by mparker762

Would it help him to get it reground by that cutlery outfit Joe Chandler used a few months ago? Wouldn't that clean up the inconsistencies in the original grind? Or is the problem that the sheer amount of honing that's needed, and this is exposing problems in the OP's honing technique?

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I wasn't that happy with the job Ross did on my razors. I wound up having to even up a lot of things myself, so I can't recommend them. Had to hone them all, too, even though I was told they'd be shave ready when I got them back.

the only other trick is to turn you hone edge on and sharpen using that its only opprox 1/2" wide so you need an exadgerated x patten but it will work and give you an even bevel
Kind regards Peter