Thread: Different Grinds

Up until now every razor I saw with medium Grind was a 5/8 blade but the last 2 razors with medium grind on the blade turned out to be 6/8. would medium grind be 1/2 hollow or what. Still new at this and learning every day. I once told a friend who for sure knows more about this than I do not to be kind and just tell me I don't know squat. As long as I learn from it. I like to buy any where I can and lately it's off the bay and clean the razor hone it shave with it enjoy it for a while then sell it to chase another. I'm retired and enjoy keeping active at some thing. You can't fish and hunt all the time. Anyway thanks.

Straight razor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is, basically, wedge, quarter hollow, medium hollow, full hollow.

Double concave, asymmetrical, extra hollow, half hollow.

Originally Posted by rhensley

Up until now every razor I saw with medium Grind was a 5/8 blade but the last 2 razors with medium grind on the blade turned out to be 6/8. would medium grind be 1/2 hollow or what. Still new at this and learning every day. I once told a friend who for sure knows more about this than I do not to be kind and just tell me I don't know squat. As long as I learn from it. I like to buy any where I can and lately it's off the bay and clean the razor hone it shave with it enjoy it for a while then sell it to chase another. I'm retired and enjoy keeping active at some thing. You can't fish and hunt all the time. Anyway thanks.

If I understand your question correctly, it is really just at the whim of the manufacturer. A lot of blades marked 'medium hollow' will have varying degrees of hollowness to them (defined by the width that is ground out and the radius of the grinding wheel). When we say quarter hollow or half hollow etc, it is really just a rough guide and not standardized, at least to a precise extent with razors from the 1800s. In fact, you will see blades marked 'concave' that are hollow ground, and others marked 'concave' that are the concave style seen a lot in older Sheffield razors where the grinding was turned 90 degrees to hollow out a smaller area on the lower half of the blade.

The medium ground or hollows that I have seen are what I would call a half hollow. Some have been closer to a quarter hollow. I guess you could say that a medium ground is somewhere between a full hollow and a wedge - which is a half hollow.

Originally Posted by celticcrusader

Double concave, asymmetrical, extra hollow, half hollow.

This graphic clarifies pretty well. I have been looking for something like this to figure out the grind of my first straight razor. Thanks for sharing.

The true wedge is a beast. If I were to get a second SR, I would get a wedge. The weight of it is really nice.

Originally Posted by dngrspapercut

The true wedge is a beast. If I were to get a second SR, I would get a wedge. The weight of it is really nice.

I'm pretty experienced with vintage and antique razors and I've never seen a true wedge grind. All of them were ground on a wheel, and thus have a little bit of concavity to them. Only microtomes have a truly flat side, and that's only one of them.

All that said, there were period ads from the early 1800's for convex razors, which I would really love to see and really hate to hone.

Would anyone know what 4-5 on the Henckel scale is? It looks like half hollow to my eye, maybe quarter? Or half way between?