Thread: Honing difference - meister vs newb

I was comparing the bevels on my razors and noticed this:

invariably, bevels from Joe Chandler, Bill Ellis, Robert Williams (the only ones I have razors from, hoping for a Lynn in the indefinite future) have WIDE bevels.

Edges I honed often shave decent, but have much narrower bevels - like half the width of the honemeisters' bevels. I use a Norton 4k/8k, followed by a Lithide, trying to avoid any pressure

I would like to hear some thoughts on that... Is a wider bevel better? How does one achieve it without more pressure?

Thank you!
Ivo

I'm not a honemeister, but here's my opintion fwiw:

The width of the bevel is determined by its ange and the thickness of the blade where the bevel starts. The first is determined by the thickness of the spine and note that even a concave blade gets slightly thicker towards the spine.
You can apply more pressure, and while it will create the illusion of a wider bevel, it will actually miss the very edge.

So a wider bevel usually means that the spine is thinner or the blade is thicker [edited: not narrower like it said before], both of which are characteristics of used blades with hone wear. So if you buy restored blades from the masters, there's a good chance that blade has seen the hone quite a few times in the past, whereas your new or nos blades still have the original narrow bevel.
Note that a wide bevel due to a thinner spine (with a disproportionally less abraded edge) can mean that the angle of your bevel is more acute. And a more acute edge cuts better.
This is in addition to the honing abilities of the respective honers, which of course can add a lot.

Redwoood

Thanks Izlat for posting that ?
I also have noticed the the wider bevels on some of the blades.
i am anxious waiting for enlightenment
FredC.

Originally Posted by fcohio

i am anxious waiting for enlightenment
FredC.

Well, seems to me Redwood already enlightened us.

Of course, I understand that the spine thickness / the angle determines the bevel, I just had not connected it to extended use. Seems that quite a bit of spine wear shall be necessary, btw, to achieve the wide bevel

CHeers
Ivo

Even if spine and edge wear are perfectly proportional, the blade gets slightly thicker as it becomes narrower/is honed away.
I believe this is probably the biggest factor, though incompetent honing by previous honers is quite likely, too.

Redwoood

I think the bottom line here is that as a general rule the bevel width does not effect the shaving ability of a razor. I have some razors with really tiny bevels and they give great shaves and I have razors with huge bevels that give equally great shaves and I have wide and narrow beveled razors that both give crummy shaves (or did when I got them). The only constant I've found is that if I get an Eboy special in a typical 6/8s or 5/8s razor and it doesn't respond to conservative honing and it has a narrow bevel I will try and enlarge that bevel abit and that is what it usually takes to get it into shape. On the other hand if I get an Eboy special that already has a wide bevel and it doesn't shave very well it is rare that conservative honing doesn't bring it back into shape.

So what am I saying here. I think that if a razor shaves well with a narrow bevel thats fine but if it doesn't then widening the bevel is usually the medicine it needs. Clear as mud?

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

The only constant I've found is that if I get an Eboy special in a typical 6/8s or 5/8s razor and it doesn't respond to conservative honing and it has a narrow bevel I will try and enlarge that bevel abit and that is what it usually takes to get it into shape.

I've found some ebay razors where the edge metal seemed to have oxidized internally or something -- the metal looked good, but when you put it on the hone it crumbles and chips away. The cure for these is to keep honing until you get to good steel. The microscope really helps with this.

Can't stay...bye bye, now...

Originally Posted by Redwoood

The width of the bevel is determined by its ange and the thickness of the blade where the bevel starts.

Actually, bevel angles fall in a very narrow range, and non-wedges will have front porton that they try to get as thin as possible, which is also pretty consistent. That pins down the bevel width, which will also be pretty consistent, especially on a given size/model of razor. It's just trigonometry.

Where I have seen variation is when a razor has a lot of spine wear. Then the bevel angle gets steeper and the bevel witdh increases.

Originally Posted by mparker762

I've found some ebay razors where the edge metal seemed to have oxidized internally or something -- the metal looked good, but when you put it on the hone it crumbles and chips away. The cure for these is to keep honing until you get to good steel. The microscope really helps with this.

I've noticed this on most of the old razors I get on Ebay. I first noticed it when an edge that seemed OK on the 4K suddenly develop microscopic chips when I went to the 8K. It seems that with the thinner edge the oxidized metal didn'y have enough strength and just collapsed. After I honed it the way you described, I got a beautiful edge.

Then I went back and checked all of my old Ebay razors and noticed that most of them had this problem to some degree. I was ableto improvr the shave even on ones that were OK.