Thread: Spine wear

I got lucky choosing my first couple razors and the spines aren't worn much at all. But my question is how much wear is to much? I see many beautiful razors, celluloid carved(?) that I'd love to have but not as an unusable wall hanger.

Thx, Tim

Not all spine wear is the same. There is a lot of uneven spine wear and that is never good. There is excessive spine wear, that I split into two groups. The worst of them is when people unknowingly put far too much pressure on the spine when honing and wear the spine down faster than the edge, and it messes with the razors geometry. The other is even spine wear from a lot of very good honing, but the wear makes the razor somewhat unsightly. A little hone wear that is nice and even is not that big of a deal. Without pictures and specifics it really is hard to explain.

For example, this one. Beautiful scales, other than the crack, but it seems the spine is worn even but heavy.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-DIA...IAAOSwNWxaA7rn

Thanks

The spine wear can be worked around, but the crack.....

If it was still available, I'd pass on it. The cracks and in my opinion that spine ware is too much. It might be even but the back side it is worn a lot. When worn a lot more on one side then the other is also not a good thing...

No issues honing and using that razor. The spine wear on that isn't anything that I would think twice about and I've had a good many blades pass over my hones. The tiny chip in the cutting edge will hone out. The crack mentioned in the listing is in the scales, at the pivot end but it looks stable. Throw one layer of tape on that spine, remove the small chip and hone it up!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I personally do not find spine wear offensive, I actually kind of like it. I've always been attracted to things that show the passage of time, like wear in stone stairways. I once started a thread where I was asking for pictures of razors with fancy worked spines that also had spine wear. I thought the pictures that I received looked kind of cool. One day I'll hone one of my fancy damascus razors sans tape, just to see.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not relating the wear to beauty, only usefulness. I agree wear shows someone used this a lot. Also gives character.

There is the argument that spine wear keeps the geometry the same as the edge wears. There are a lot of factors that can make this statement true or false. It is best to just measure the bevel angle mathematically. Not something that can be done with a picture.

Just about any razor could be put into service with creative taping or evening out the spine with stones if spine wear is the only thing wrong with the razor. Most razors that have really bad spine wear also have other problems such as frowns, heel hooks, wide bevel reveals, etc.

Hey Tim, I live about 45 minutes from you...just south of Hugo. You ever need any help, just contact me.

That razor is fine in regards to spine wear.