Thread: edge angle

hey,

how do you feel if the angle is too big? i honed my henkotsu size two with tape. i had to rehone it twice because of chips. (dont know how they got there). Still i used tape to prevent the spine of honewear. Now the razor got worse than before. I think it maybe is the angle that changed too much cause of the honing. Could this be? if yes i would rehone it without tape, but how do i know if the spine is down enough?

Angle is pre-set. It’s a 10 to 1 ratio for a safe bet. 10 passes on the omote side. 1 pass on the ura (stamped side). I have done many combinations there-of and some Nihonkamisori require a little extra to dial them in. (10:3) (24:7) etc..

Don’t be afraid to hone without tape. Just don’t go hog wild on the Ura side of the blade. Don’t let the horror of the Franken razor scare you off. Keep at it. If you are seeing chips in the edge, are looking under magnification ??

I’m sure others will chime in. Re-read Jim Rs translation from Iwasaki-san. Sorry I don’t have the link.

Mike

Is this your first attempt at honing a Kamisori ??? I am assuming this is a Kamisori here also

No, i honed all my kamisoris (about 17). All with taped spine. Theyre all great shavers except this one which i had to hone more times. The angle had changed while getting less wide so my question is if its getting worse because of this. If yes i would hone it again to flatten the spine to get the right angle again. If not i wont do this.

Only you could say, unless you can get a pretty high quality pic so we could see the razor ??
You did say this razor was shaving before, so I don't think it is the angle, is there a lot of wear on this razor??

No, there isnt wear at all. I got this nos and honed it with tape. And in beginning it was definatly better than now. Oh and it still shaves pretty good, but worse than before. It is not as smooth and not as close as it was in beginning after first time honing.

The problem is most likely not the change in the bevel angle as that's about 0.5 degree (unless you're doing some funky taping), but rather the inconsistency on the 'flat' side. With very shallow grinding your bevel is set not by the 'spine ridge' of the razor, but by the edge of the tape, so you end up with a funky irregular geometry.
Or it could be something else with the razor.

If it were me, I'd simply hone it the way it was made, i.e. without a tape. When done well the hone wear shouldn't really be very significant.

jea the first time i honed it with tape it about .5 degree more. But i honed it a lot of times because of some damn chips so it got less wide, maybe 1mm. So the angle will be bigger cause it is still the same spine. or am i wrong here?