Thread: Trouble Shaving with the SRP Wedge Razor and Other Wedge Razor

Originally Posted by puketui41

I'm in the same boat. I've honed my share of razors and only have trouble with wedges and 1/4 grinds. I have one that i've managed to get to a level I'm happy with, but the other two, I've checked the bevel, reset the bevel, tried dropping back down to 8000# for twenty strokes then re-polish, then drop down to 8000# and re-polish testing each time to see if there's any improvement. I've tried slurry, pasted strops, less stropping pressure, more stropping pressure, you name it. I always seem to end up at the same place: a sharp razor with what in my experience is a well developed and polished edge that just doesn't shave as well as hollow razors

That is probably the reason, most razors of more modern eras, are hollow grinds instead of wedges. People are looking for a closer, easier, hair pinging shave. The wedge ground blade, if beveled, hone properly, will give you a good shave, but with slightly different end results, with proper technique, actually I prefer a hollow grind, I like to hear, and feel the hairs being snipped off cleanly, as opposed to a lawn mower effect of a none flexing wedge blade, just my opinion though.
When stropping a wedge, at least with my experience, there is no singing blade effect, heard from the blade while moving back and forth, on the leather, with the hollow grind, I can judge my strop, and blade sharpness, by the sound of the blade passing over the strop.

I have a couple wedges and after watching a few videos I tried one of the tips that was mentioned in one of them. That was that sometimes when there is a problem getting a good edge was to try adding another piece of tape or two to the spine. This did the trick for me on one of my wedges that was giving me problems. By the way, I'm no expert, still learning and I still have have problems from time to time. As the pros say, hone hone hone!


Mike


Mike

A properly honed wedge type blade profile should shave as close as a hollow ground blade profile. Wedge type profiles are more time consuming to hone correctly and is one reason they fell out of popularity. A properly honed razor (Wedge, Hollow grind, Frameback, nihonkamisori) can be used at zero angle exerting more pressure on the spine rather than at the edge.

There should be no tugging of the whiskers as you make your WTG, XTG or ATG shave pass. The wedge profile is called a silent shaver for a reason. The first step should be to access the edge under magnification. Then visually monitor the edge before, during and after edge progression weather honing on stones or stropping on mediums IMHO. Good luck sir.

Mike