New Dovo, factory fresh, another new dovo (honed) from classicshaving.

Hi all - I got a Dovo straight (the standard entry level carbon "best quality" with black scales) for Christmas. It shaved well, in that "Dovo shave ready" way, but lost it's edge fairly quickly despite crox and stropping. I ordered a set of hones (dmt coarse, fine, extra fine, extra extra fine, chinese 12k) to be followed with 9, 6, 3, 1 micron diamond and .5 micron crox. Before honing that dovo, I ordered another dovo from classicshaving.com since they come pre-honed. I wanted to see a well-honed razor before I tried doing mine. I'm pretty proficient at knife sharpening but razors are new to me :)

SO, enough backstory - my observation was that the razor honed at classicshaving had a much smaller bevel, the dovo factory honed had a much wider bevel; the factory honed (black) dovo seemed to actually shave better after stropping (new) than the classicshaving (yellow) dovo - no big deal, I had some chipping to resolve on the black dovo and proceeded to hone it down. One observation is that on both dovos, the spine was pretty uneven; it's FAR worse on the dovo factory honed razor than the classic shaving, but you can see some variation on it. Is it totally necessary to flatten the spine before attempting to set a bevel? I don't have either razor with me, but I can shoot some pics when I get home if it'll help. I went to a local store and the basic dovo in their case had a slightly uneven spine as well, so perhaps this is just par for the course. After honing the black dovo, the resulting bevel is uneven, but matches the variation in thickness of the spine. It shaves well, but it's uneven. Any advice? Perhaps there's a thread on this but I think I'm overcomplicating my search terms.

d'oh, of course I re-word my search and immediately find
http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...ovo-blade.html

if anyone has any further input, however - feel free!

Basically, the resulting bevel is wider at the point than by the stabilizer. Figured I'd ask before I spend an hour rubbing tiny circles on the DMT to level the spine... I'll check resulting thickness with a caliper a little later to get a little more insight.

I saw gssixgun's post "Try two layers of tape do sets of 20 circles, just like Lynn's and my vids show until you have a even sharpness, note I didn't say even looking bevel that might never happen.. Once the sharpness is really even from toe to heel then remove 1 layer of tape and do a set or two of 20 medium pressure circles.. Replace the layer of old tape with new and hone as you normally do to finish off the razor... Change the tape once again for the final 20 laps of feather light finishing laps.."

which tells me that I might never get an even bevel - this kills me, but if someone here will validate my understanding of the above post, I'll just swallow the frustration over the uneven bevel and live with it. Of note: I just received a box of gold dollars to learn/practice honing on. I'm going to chip up one of them on a sink, etc. and set myself to repairing them. Should result in a much better understanding of how the process works :D

Also - the bevel from classicshaving was even, if that makes a difference. It looks a little uneven towards the ends, but that might have been someone correcting what dovo did to it with their factory honing :)

The width of the bevel is determined by three things:

1. The thickness of the blade just behind the edge;

2. The thickness of the spine;

3. The width of the blade (from spine to edge).

The thickness of the spine and the width of the blade, together, determine the bevel angle.

The thickness of the blade behind the edge, and the bevel angle, determine the width of the bevel.

It's difficult to grind a blade with perfectly constant thickness -- a full-hollow-ground blade is _thin_ at the edge! So it's common, and perfectly OK, for a blade to have an uneven-width bevel. It's not caused by imperfect honing, it's caused by imperfect grinding during manufacture.

It's not so desirable to have a variable-thickness spine. But there's a fair bit of variation allowable in the bevel angle for a "good shave", and I wouldn't worry about it much.

All that really counts is that the two bevels meet at the edge.

. Charles

PS -- You can work out the trig yourself. Just drawing some pictures of blade cross-sections should be enough to understand what's happening.

ok, thanks! I had a feeling it was me being a stickler :)

I'm still going to take my calipers and take micron measurements along the spines of all my razors... just to see, you know?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cpcohen1945

The width of the bevel is determined by three things:

1. The thickness of the blade just behind the edge;

2. The thickness of the spine;

3. The width of the blade (from spine to edge).

The thickness of the spine and the width of the blade, together, determine the bevel angle.

The thickness of the blade behind the edge, and the bevel angle, determine the width of the bevel.

It's difficult to grind a blade with perfectly constant thickness -- a full-hollow-ground blade is _thin_ at the edge! So it's common, and perfectly OK, for a blade to have an uneven-width bevel. It's not caused by imperfect honing, it's caused by imperfect grinding during manufacture.

It's not so desirable to have a variable-thickness spine. But there's a fair bit of variation allowable in the bevel angle for a "good shave", and I wouldn't worry about it much.

All that really counts is that the two bevels meet at the edge.

. Charles

PS -- You can work out the trig yourself. Just drawing some pictures of blade cross-sections should be enough to understand what's happening.

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If the thing is shaving fine don't worry about the bevel. Over time when you touch up the razor you can slowly even it up then.