Thread: Honing a Rolls Razor???

So I bought a rolls no 2 on the weekend and to my dismay the hone is cracked in a couple places. I'm not really worried about it since I only paid $2 for it. But I was wondering has any one tried to hone a rolls blade on a regular stone? I tried to shave with it last night and while it will shave arm hair it couldn't even touch my beard, so obviously it needs a little work. As an added challenge all I have for honing right now is a wester bros de-fi combo hone and a crox treated bench hone I made (gotta wait till my birthday for more stones). So if anyone had done this and knows of any tricks that might help me out that would be great. As a side note if and one had a rolls hone that isn't cracked that they would be willing to part with I would be more than willing to work out some sort of deal.

cheers
-Omid

you could try picking up another rolls razor with the hone intact but everything else goosed. Or try and antiques fair etc? antiques shops round here seem to be coming down with them. Did notice cracked hones was a common theme though

Yeah most of them that I've seen have cracked hones. I'm not overly fussy about finding an intact hone I was kinda thinking it was a cheap way of starting to learn how to hone. So really more than an intact hone (I wouldn't say no if there was one to be had for cheap) but if anyone had any tips/ tricks for honing the blade on a standard hone, or should it just work like like any other razor?
cheers
-Omid

My Rolls razor used to have an unbroken hone until I dropped it.Mine too would not shave my face.Before the hone was broken I did use it to try and get a better edge but no amount of honing/stropping made any difference.It was suggested to me that it would be better to remove the safety guard from the blade and hone it on a straight razor hone.I must admit I did not try this as I use a straight and the Rolls is just a nice ornament.

The blade in a Rolls razor will sharpen up just fine on a regular hone. No need to remove the guard, just flip it from one side to the other when you change sides. It's just a little tricky placing the blade on the hone spine first so as to not destroy the edge you're making.

I got my best results with a circular honing stroke, doing ten strokes and then changing sides. YMMV.

You'll want to strop it using the one that is in the case. It's probably dried out, but some Fromm's strop dressing should bring it back to usefulness. Take the strop off of the cover to apply the dressing.

Rick

Yeah I took it to the hones last night and I see what you mean about controlling how the blade touches down I'm thinking I'm just going to have to make some kinda handle so it hones a little more like a straight.

cheers
-Omid

So that was an epic fail, I did sets of 10 circles of the "coarse" side maybe 50 total on each side and repeated the process on the "fine" side of the hone. I can't really detect any change it still haphazardly shaves arm hair and I mean very haphazardly some hairs are left unshaven and most are not cut all the way down . As an observation I noticed that the water did not grey at all...is it possible that I'm not removing any steel??? Any advice would be most appreciated.

P.S. I'm using a wester bros de-fi combo hone

cheers
-Omid

I believe that hone is designed to touch up an edge that still shaves, but not to repair a seriously damaged one. Your observation that it didn't seem like you were removing steel is a good indication. You probably need to use a lower grit stone, at least a 4k, and maybe a 1k, to set a new bevel.

Thanks that was kinda the direction I was going in. As a side note I was looking at the edge with my 4X loop (I have a 20X but I seemed to have misplace it probably in my sons toy box) and even under a such low magnification I have see defined striations perpendicular to the edge, along the bevel. Is it possible that someone already tried to re-set a bevel on it? If so these "scratches" although invisible to the naked look pretty deep. Might "they" have used excessive pressure when setting their bevel and if so should I plan on honing through that before setting my own bevel? I'm starting to realize this thread would do much better in the Honing sub forum maybe one of the mods could move it.

Cheers
-Omid

Well, anything's possible with a razor of unknown history, but I think that the scratches are just as likely to be from trying to use the broken hone.

In any case, it does sound like you need to start by setting the bevel.

Rick