Thread: Razor sharpened like a knife, And a New Test

My New Frederick Reynolds is taking some work because the previous owner sharpened it like a knife, which is to say, he sharpened it like an idiot. I still think I got a good deal on the razor, it's just gonna' take some time before I can shave with this little gem.

I don't know if I'm stating the obvious here or if it's been discussed to death already, but I "discovered" a simple visual test to asses the edge of a blade. It's pretty straight forward (no pun intended), really. The bevel on the edge is on the same plane as the flat side of the spine because they're both in contact with the hone together*. So when you hold the blade at arms-length with a strong light source behind you, the light will reflect from both of those surfaces at the same time. What I do is turn the blade until I seethe glint along the flat of the spine and then look to see if the blade's edge is catching the light, too.

Well, all my blades pass this quick test except one. Guess who the slacker is? If you said ole' Fred Reynolds, then you said right. The edge is very rounded, and with my reading glasses on, I can see some minute scratching along the blade from where it was honed with something way too coarse for a razor.

I started to work on it a bit last night. I stretched some 600 grit sandpaper over a piece of glass and used that for a hone. I switched to 1000 with a bit of water. Then I put it on my razor hone (I salvaged it from an old Rolls Razor case. I think it's Arkansas stone) and finished it up on my perforated hone. Well, I shouldn't have bothered with the last two steps, because I still don't have a flat and parallel bevel on the entire length of the blade. It's going to take some more time with the sandpaper, I think.


*That is, unless you've been wrapping the spine in electrical tape when you hone

Sounds like brilliance (no pun intended either) to me. Good advice.

Cool! A good idea, simple and effective.

When I put a micro bevel on a razor I use this test to see how wide it is. As soon as my naked eyes can see a sliver of reflected light at the edge, I stop. Other wise I use a quick little 10x eye loupe for general bevel setting.