Thread: Wedge Sharpening

Is it difficult to get an older wedge blade sharp? I've heard that that it is very difficult to put a shave ready edge on these. Anybody have hands on experience?

Ray

Originally Posted by jabomano

Is it difficult to get an older wedge blade sharp? I've heard that that it is very difficult to put a shave ready edge on these. Anybody have hands on experience?

Ray

Compare to hollow ground blades they are difficult.
If you do have chips ,double smile face or single smile face , true wedge ,cast steel etc it gets more time consuming.
hope this helps.

Some wedges are absolute nightmares and can take over an hour to hone easily.

Compared to full hollows, some of the older wedges are so different its really quite extraordinary to see how much their design has evolved. Just the weight behind some wedges, I reckon they could chop fingers off!

Not more difficult; it just tends to take longer to set the bevel. From there on in, they are exactly the same as honing any other razor.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Not more difficult; it just tends to take longer to set the bevel. From there on in, they are exactly the same as honing any other razor.

Agreed...Once the bevel is set, that's 99% of the battle, most of the steel has been removed..Fine tuning, or making it shave ready is a breeze.
The old Wade and Butcher's IME can take a while to set a proper bevel...

The ones that I have come across all appeared to have been honed like a pocket knife & took several layers of tape and a lot, repeat, lot of work at the rough grits. Be prepared to replace the outside layer of tape several times before you get a uniform bevel set. Once you get past 1K, it's much easier, but still takes a few more passes. You are simply removing more steel...

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Not more difficult; it just tends to take longer to set the bevel. From there on in, they are exactly the same as honing any other razor.

Exactly Holli - harder to set bevel = harder to hone! I agree the rest is the same, most of which is polishing, not honing to be pedantic!

Well if we're going to be pedantic, longer is not the same as harder. It takes longer to set the bevel on a wedge, but it is not harder to do so.

If you knew the ordeal Utopian just went through honing mine, you'd definitely agree it's harder, longer and a royal PIA. (And by the way, he did a super job)!

Here, let's clarify just a bit on this OK...

A NOS or properly honed Vintage or New heavy blade Wedge, Near Wedge or 1/4 Hollow is not any harder to hone than any other razor and takes the same amount of time...

A 100 year old or older Wedge, Near Wedge or 1/4 hollow that has had 12 different bevels put on there over the years and has a uneven spine and uneven bevel from imoproper honing over the decades is a PITA to restore to proper geometry...
Once the bevel is reset to even, then it is just a razor, again a bit of simple semantics between what is Restoration and what is Honing

Now if you really want to take this to another level and talk about not correcting the old uneven bevels and just tweaking the very edge, that can be done another way.....Remember that the people who put those uneven bevels on that razor were shaving that razor, ever wondered how they did that????

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