Thread: Can hone wear render a blade unusable?

I'll be honest, I've been struggling to keep the faith here. Bought an old razor off eBay, decent make, nice steel, honed it up so it was pinging hairs like there was no tomorrow, only thing is that I may as well have run an electric planer over my chin. Copped a nice deep cut that's taken the better part of 3 weeks to disappear, it was a humdinger for sure. Anyhoo, I no longer trust this blade, it has some pretty heavy honing wear on the spine and the bevel is about 2.5mm in width. Does this strike anyone as being a rather large bevel? I mean the edge will be super sharp, but wafer thin surely?

Going to buy one more razor (after taking some solid advice from here) suitable for my beard from hell, and if I still can't get the hair off my face without the scrape scrape scrape followed by much smarting, then maybe it's not for me.

Hope it does work out because you lot seem to be nice people

Worried about the same sort of thing happening to me when get new razors and decide to try for the first time .. . *crosses fingers*

for the most part, no. Post a pic of the razor if you get a chance though.

What's your honing, finishing, stropping routine?

Shredder, I'm sorry to hear about your challenges. Most of us have a skin transition period and a learning curve. Technique makes or breaks a straight razor shaver. Keep your shaving angle very low, meaning don't lift the spine off your face very much (approx 20-30 degree angle to the face thereby staying as far as possible away from the dreaded and injurious slicing 90 degrees to face that no one would ever do, but you get the idea). Personally, 30 degrees is even too steep for my taste.

Did you hone a wedge? I've honed some wedges where I honed them "au naturale" (didn't tape the spine). The hone wear on the spine and the edge bevels were ghastly and uneven and some of the bevel was as big as you're stating. I've NEVER had bevels as wide as that on a 1/4, 1/2 of full hollow.

Stick with it!

Chris L

Thank you for clarifying au naturale honing!

Originally Posted by Utopian

Thank you for clarifying au naturale honing!

No problem!

Chris L

And here's me thinking that "au naturale" honing meant doing it in the nude! Could have resulted in the unkindest cut of all!

Number one. Get a razor honed by someone here and learn to shave with that. Not with one you honed yourself. Its tomany skills to learn at once. Shaving angle etc and mixing a good lather are enought to juggle to get good at, let alone adding honeing ontop of that. If you dont know what normal is then you have no chance.
Two in my very limited experience i find it hard to believe there isnt a razor you could get to shave well. I have razors with 1ml bevel on one side and .25 on the other and they shave just fine. Honeing will center the edge. Doesnt mater what the razor looks like.

Stick around mate youll get it, and its great fun.

+Buckler

thats my aim too for all in good time to develop good skills in all those areas.

Jase