Way back at the dawn of time, I bought on eBay a Puma SS razor and noticed after receiving it that it was flat on one side and hollowed on the other. At the time, the general opinion (such as it was) on the old Yahoo SRP was that these razors were sold as right and left handed models. Later, it was realised that they had been made for cutting surgical specimens, much as a microtome would be used today when preparing a specimen for staining on a slide before inspection under a microscope.
I did spend a little time trying to hone it back then, but had no success. I tried the thing of honing only the hollowed side and then giving one pass on the hone on the flat side. In those days I regarded any stainless razor as beyond me, as, indeed, it was, at the time. It occurs to me that these razors, if I may call them razors, were obviously capable of taking a very good edge if they were to do the job they were sold for - if a microtome is blunt it will shear and distort the tissues in the sample and make the pathologist's job rather harder than usual. What's more, they would have been sharpened by lab techs who probably didn't obsess about the minutiae of honing. So, given all that, we must be capable of doing a good job on such blades!
Has anyone ever got one shaving sharp? How?
Chris
