Slight grinning wedge?

I received a new toy from eBay today and have been playing around this evening. This is my first wedge blade ever so I attempted honing before anything else. I did manage to get it to at least close to shave ready and will try shortly. As far as setting a bevel evenly I'm wondering if this is typical looking, again no other polishing has been done so it really stands out as to what's been honed. I did not use tape on the latter stages of the honing so the spine is nice and shiny too.

I'll let everyone know whether it shaves but I'd just like an opinion as to whether this looks typical or not?

Attachment 86112

I have seen a few like that. I even have one that has been honed so many times, that it now hones the entire side!

I don't think it is typical in the respect of the size of the bevel. Any of my wedges that had bevels half that size I reground to make the hone up easier. In any case, yours has a ton of metal to play with and it will be a great restoration project and scales are very cool too.

With some polishing you can make that baby look brand new, even better if you give it a mirror finish. Great find, may I ask how much you won it for if you don't mind me asking that is?

Typically, one would call that a lot of hone wear but there's a lot of razor left too.
Usually the less the wear the smaller the bevels even on wedges.

Typical? no. If a guy brought me that razor ans asked me to hone it I would say no. It needs to be reground. Not just sanded but actually reground so that a decent concave is recreated that will result in a bevel width of less than 1/16" of an inch.

But, if your a glutton for punishment ( like most of us) then you can continue honing it.

Good luck, :)

I was using tape on it but couldn't ever get close to even on the bevel. I actually liked the idea of leaving it with the worn look but I've already took a lot of the patina off by honing so I'll probably polish up now.

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Originally Posted by xMackx

With some polishing you can make that baby look brand new, even better if you give it a mirror finish. Great find, may I ask how much you won it for if you don't mind me asking that is?

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The auction ended at $60 plus shipping

Short of major restoration work (regrind) try yet another piece of tape to that spine. You can shave with it, but I'll bet you'll have to use a pasted strop - alot.

I'm fairly new to honing and straights for that matter although I've been able to get several vintage razors to shave quite well. When you all say regrind is this adding hollowness to the blade or flattening it back to a wedge?

adding hollowness to the blade. Most wedges aren't "true" wedges, but have some degree of hollowing. This focuses the hone to the very edge of the razor, so you are not honing the entire side of your blade. Any amount of hollow allows just the spine and edge to contact the stone.

I did get it to shave pretty decent, it still leaves a little to be acceptable. I think I'm going to try adding another layer of tape like suggested first. What type of setup is needed to regrind the blade? I have a small belt sander that I've made a few fixed blade knives with before but I'm unsure how or if it could be used for this project.

Layers of tape will get the spine up and the bevels on the hone without regrinding. I've gone to five layers of tape, and would go further if I had to, with nary a problem and fine edges resulting.

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Originally Posted by 62belair

I did get it to shave pretty decent, it still leaves a little to be acceptable. I think I'm going to try adding another layer of tape like suggested first. What type of setup is needed to regrind the blade? I have a small belt sander that I've made a few fixed blade knives with before but I'm unsure how or if it could be used for this project.

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Those old wedges were ground on rather large, dangerous wheels. I think most custom guys these days use like a 10" wheel but you may be able to adapt or compensate with what you have. Check out some of Charlie's posts http://straightrazorpalace.com/members/spazola.html

I took a look at Charlie's posts. Any suggestions on how to figure the size wheel to use to add just a minimal grind to the blade? The blade is just shy of 13/16 at the moment.

Attachment 86244

The above is a pic of the "honing guide" that slides over the spine of the large microtome. It is simply a thin walled tubing with a slot milled out. This I would suggest for your razor.

To regrind your razor please read page 43 of the following......

http://straightrazorpalace.com/srpwi...ral_Manual.pdf

From that it appears that a grinding wheel of approx 210 mm or 8.2" diameter would give you a 6/8 " blade.

But, the easiest way is to simply add tape.

Hope this helps, :)