Thread: BigSpedur's challenge

Yesterday I received thebigspendur's challenge.
This razor is as dull as a butterknife. I could safely slide my thumbpad across the length of the blade (no pressure of course)
Other than that i has a nice feel to it, and it looks real nice. The lighting of my flash makes it look scuffed, but the blade is in good condition, and the handles are smooth.i




The edge looks very damaged. It might be that there is a slight warp to the blade, but I couldn't really see it when laid flat on the stone.
My first approach will be to tape the spine and hone it on a coarse stone (1000 or 2000. don't know exactly) to establish a new and even bevel.

The blade itself is wedge shaped and has a lot of meat to it, so I might be able to hide the slight warp in the blade itself.

I'll keep everyone posted on the progress.

And thanks to thebigspendur for graciously sending me the razor free of charge.

Will you be able to keep the engraving on the blade?
Even though it isn’t accurate at the moment.
Tony H

Good luck with the honing. I like the little tang on 'er.

X

Originally Posted by portal5

Will you be able to keep the engraving on the blade?
Even though it isn’t accurate at the moment.
Tony H

I think so.
The spine is pretty thick, so the engraving is raised far enough that it should never touch the stone.

Ok. Whoever owned this razor before Nelson probably used it for splitting logs or slaughtering a bull.

This thing was dull.

So I started Xing on my industrial stone. Don't know the grit size. I suspect 1000 or 2000. Used a piece of coticule for raising a slurry.
After a couple of minutes I realized that this was going nowhere. This steel is hard, and the edge was rounded and uneven. The blade also has an ever so slight warp.

Forget technique, forget refinement. I pressed it on the stone with one sided, and rubbed back and forth for 50 laps. then I flipped it on its side, and scraped it back and forth for 50 laps.
I repeated this for 1.5 hour...

By that time (and with some intermediate local corrections) the bevel was even, and restored along the blade except for 0.5 cm of both the heel and the toe.

Then I used a modified X for about 20 minutes. Because of the warp, the regular X doesn't work because then the blade doesn't touch stone everywhere. I kept the blade at a 45 degree angle so that I could slide the entire edge over the stone. Near the end of the X I rotated the blade so that I ended perpendicular to the stone.

The edge is now sharp enough to smoothly shave dry arm hair without scraping the skin, except for the heel and toe. That is not quite there yet.

What with all the honing lately, my left arm starts to look funny, with all the bald patches.

Anyhow, that's it for today. A small malt whisky and then off to bed.

I just honed on e of these up last week. Mine didn't start off as dull as this one sounds, but I had the same problem on the heel and toe. I had to come back here and re-read Scott's post about how to establish a smile and then i used the short stroke technique to specifically work the heel and toe at each grit size till I finished with exaggerated x's on my barbers hone. It shaves great! I love the point and curve of it.

Yea I had gotten that thing to the point where it shaved armhairs reasonably well but it wouldn't shave worth a damn. Then I experimented with a lansky diamond hone because it does have a double warp to it. That undid everything I had done previously. By that point it just wasn't worth the effort anymore. It is a very old and well worn razor. When I got it it wouldn't even cut butter.

Yesterday I managed to get the edge HHT sharp, but the heel and the toe would not get sharp.

I could not get them sharp because the blade is a bit narrower at those points, and the bevel would not touch the stone. There was little I could do about that, but then I realised that there is a solution: take away a bit of the spine.

So I started honing the heel and toe separately with a lot of pressure on the spine itself. Not on the blade.

Now I have 2 shiny bevels running all the way from heel to toe.
I will do some more Xing to make the spine surface that touches the sone a bit smoother.

Yesterday I spent another 1.5 hours on the hone. I wanted to have the edge flat on the hone in order to comfortably hone the heel and the toe.

Unfortunately -as you can see on the pictures- the spine is uneven due to previous abuse. So I started grinding the sping on the hone in order to make it flat.

It is now flat, and the bevel touche stone along the whole length, except for the very last couple of mm of the heel. Good enough for now.

One thing I learned yesterday: when grinding the spine, do not make lateral movements. always keep the blade at somewhere between 45 deg and perpendicular to the stone. otherwise the edge developed very bad burring.

I have cleaned up most of it, but not yet everything. Tonight I'll see if I can get it arm shaving again. from there on it should be painless to get it to shave.

I took some pictures, but the are blurry. Will try to get better pictures tonight.

That's 5.5 hours and counting. Well, with my wife going to bed early (pregnant) it gives me something to do.

7 hours and counting.

I have learned so much already. Especially how NOT to do things.

The edge was awfully burred. I spent yesterday evening trying to clear away most of the burrs. I could actually see them with the naked eye, so it was bad.

First some careful sharpening on a fine stone (2000 I think), and then 3/4 of an hour on the belgian blue.
From time to time I cut a couple of mm through a folded newspaper to remove loose burrs..
The burring is a lot less. Today I took it to work to put it under the microscope at 10*10 magnification. It looked OK to the naked eye.

the horror...
The edge is serrated like a hacksaw. The bevel is covered in deep scratches that run in all directions. It really made me nauseous, and for a moment I was tempted to give in.

But there is also good news: apart from the deeper scratches, the bevel looks nice and flat. This means that contact with the stone is good enough. The serrations are rounded, so the real burrs are gone.

Tonight I will take it to the blue again for 1 or 2 hours of careful, slow polishing.
That should hopefull make the edge smooth again.