Thread: Honing a TI

That´s a nice TI Spartacus with spine work "fleur"

My experience with the two Thiers Issard C-135 blades I own confirm that they are a bit harder than your typical Dovo or Sheffield. I have the Spartacus with worked spine as well as a plain AOS T.I. both of them exhibit some difficulty getting the bevel right. When I first attempted to hone any of these razors I found a tendency to not complete the bevel as it takes awhile and you have to pay attention to make sure its really set. If you don't complete the bevel on the 1k you will have a hard time on the higher grit stones as it will take seemingly forever. Focus on your 1k stone check often refer to your favorite bevel set indicator and move on to the polishing stages after that you should be fine. Don't leave the 1k until you have that bevel sorted out or you will be frustrated.

Personally I think they are great for leaning to hone with.

1.A lot of them are skew whiff so you will learn rolling X's n so on.

2.They take extra honing time = more time practicing.

3.You can apply pressure and you wont really mess up the bevel.

I did most my learning over a couple of years with mainly Hart steel . Appling pressure my bevels went all over the place.

The only negatives concerning these T.I blades IMO is that the pinning is a joke, the wedges are quite pathetic and some of them are really out of shape.

Most of the TI's I have honed are of the harder steel. Yes, you can use a little pressure...but if you are flexing the steel you are using too much pressure! I actually have a TI (SRP razor) that needs a bevel set or at least down a few stones to get it to shave like I know it can.

The only TI that I have ever honed that wouldn't take a great edge was one that was damaged by a buffer I assume on restoration as it wouldn't take a bevel set.

At all interested for info,the T.I Carbon Song C135 steel has a Hardness between 63-64 HRC (Rockwell).It´s not easy to hone it and it takes patience.

Does anyone know the properties of the C-135 alloy? Is it proprietary (which I doubt highly?)

I know the C135 is a carbonsteel with 1.35% carbon and the old TI are XC100 Carbonteel with 1% carbon and not so hard.

Usually a harder steel and warped.