Thread: Rodgers & Son "Mystery" Razor - what is it? How do you hone it? Help pls

Originally Posted by ajkenne

Steve, I agree there are a bunch of them. I don't have the book references that you have but have seen many of the posting about Joseph Rodgers that say the same thing in SRP and other forums. Thanks!

You're always welcome Austin!

Honing a microtome is very similar to honing a wood chisel.
Tape the spine or the gutter peak - which ever protrudes more - and use that as your hone angle.
Do 10 laps with the bevel side on the hone.
Flip it over and do three passes with the flat side, flat on the hone.
Repeat until you get the bevel set.
Run a curved slip stone through the gutter, if it has one, to smooth it up and even it out.
Move to the higher grits until you get the sharpness you desire (they do well finishing on a black Arkansas).

They strop well on a bench strop, I haven't had much luck with a hanging strop and a microtome, the edge seems mellow too much.

And I have yet to shave with one, I just use them for microscope slide preparation. YMMV

From what I can make out from the pics:

1. It is not a microtome blade.

2. Both sides of the blade are hollow ground.

3. Microtome blades had a true, flat, wedge grind on one side, never a near wedge grind which is none other than a hollow grind made on a large diameter grinding wheel. This is no microtome razor.

4. That 'gutter' is ground into a lot of razors, on either one or both sides, usually it has the makers mark acid 'frost' etched in it, or the name of the model of razor.

5. This gutter is meant to look like a fullered groove, but most of the razors like this I have had show a transition at the tang where the groove has less depth, so I conclude that it was made using a smaller wheel, probably with its axis at 90 degrees to the blade, so the grind is parallel to the spine. There are pictures of very old machines that cradle the blade while this process is performed, but due to Sod's Law I cannot find one at the moment!

6. The blade is twisted/curved along the length of the spine, and the tip is askance too - not uncommon. A bit of a trial to hone.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

From what I can make out from the pics:

1. It is not a microtome blade.

2. Both sides of the blade are hollow ground.

3. Microtome blades had a true, flat, wedge grind on one side, never a near wedge grind which is none other than a hollow grind made on a large diameter grinding wheel. This is no microtome razor.

4. That 'gutter' is ground into a lot of razors, on either one or both sides, usually it has the makers mark acid 'frost' etched in it, or the name of the model of razor.

5. This gutter is meant to look like a fullered groove, but most of the razors like this I have had show a transition at the tang where the groove has less depth, so I conclude that it was made using a smaller wheel, probably with its axis at 90 degrees to the blade, so the grind is parallel to the spine. There are pictures of very old machines that cradle the blade while this process is performed, but due to Sod's Law I cannot find one at the moment!

6. The blade is twisted/curved along the length of the spine, and the tip is askance too - not uncommon. A bit of a trial to hone.

Regards,
Neil

That's it!! I remember now. I have around three of them all made by different manufacturers. You can find information on it here but what I found might or might not be the reason for it:

Fuller (weapon) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia