Thread: Dating my butcher

Originally Posted by RedGladiator

Not with my current level of experience

What is the term for the spine? "Smiling spine"? "hollow spine"?

The 'spine' is simply that - the spine! It is the thicker bit of metal at the top of the razor. I have never heard of a smiling or hollow hollow spine - both those terms are usually applied to the blade, 'smiling' denotes a blade that resembles a cheshire cats smile (the cutting edge of the blade is curved, the spine an be curved or usually nigh on straight, while hollowing means applying a greater or lesser hollow by means of larger radius or smaller radius cutting wheels to both sides of the blade - best seen by viewing the tip head on.

As for the hone wear on your razor, the thickness of the cutting edge's bevel at the tip is quite thick and you should see this reciprocated on the sides (or 'flats') of the spine at the tip, but yours is quite light compared to the bevel. This makes me think the restorer taped the spine, frequently, while honing to avoid excess spine wear. Bevels on oldies like this tend to 'wander' a bit - does not mean poor honing. The thicker bevel at the tip could be the result of extra honing to remove a chip or to get back to stronger, non-corroded steel. You see extra wear at the tip like this on many razors, and in a lot of cases it is a fault in the grinding rather than poor honing.

Oldies (and most new un's) were hand hollowed - the tendency is for the hollowing to go a bit awry at the tip and heel. You don't notice it as often at the heel, as you can bolt a stop piece there to avoid grinding too far into the blade, so you just past the blade over the wheel with gay abandon until it hits the stop. At the tip, you can understand a slight letting off of pressure against the wheel in order to safely get past the wheel and not plunging the blade down the side of it at the end of the stroke.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

The 'spine' is simply that - the spine! It is the thicker bit of metal at the top of the razor. I have never heard of a smiling or hollow hollow spine - both those terms are usually applied to the blade

I mean that the spine is not completely flat

Originally Posted by RedGladiator

I mean that the spine is not completely flat

That is the way razors were made in that era, for the most part.

The cutting edge should parallel the spine.

I think what RG is referring to is the hone wear, causing the spine to not be completely flat...that's what the pic looks like to my eye.

Originally Posted by Phrank

I think what RG is referring to is the hone wear, causing the spine to not be completely flat...that's what the pic looks like to my eye.

As in flat, do you mean like this?


Or are you referring to hone wear like this extreme example of a well worn near wedge?

I mean the gap between the pencil and the spine, if it was flat there would be no gap.

Originally Posted by RedGladiator

I mean the gap between the pencil and the spine, if it was flat there would be no gap.

Like I said earlier, that is the way most razors of that era were made.

The straight backed design as shown in the top picture of the two I posted became more popular with the advent of machinery to do the work of grinding that was formerly done by hand.