Thread: Really confused with my first wedge like atraight razor shave

Guys i am really confused with a shave i got today with a thick wedge like straight i have restored.

I have been honing for a while now and getting great shaves with straights that i have restored or purchased new.

I use naniwa 1000,Norton 4000/8000 and then chinese 12k(waiting for a Nani 12k)

I get great shaves from all my blades.

Now i have 2 wedge like straights that when i hone i can never seem to get them sharp enough to cut arm hair midway like my other straights to see how my honing has been done.

They seem to just barely cut arm hair off and feel a little sharp when i do the thumb rub test.

I have honed these 2 blades with 1 tape,2 tapes 3 tapes and nothing seems to get them sharp.

So today as a gamble i said let me try one out on a shave and see what it does.

Did the shave test that Gssixgun says to see how it is on one side of my face and it felt like just glide down no feeling of whiskers being cut and that's it.

Now i put my hand against my cheek and it felt SMOOTTHH.

Now you know there isn't that sound of whiskers being cut with a wedge so i wasn't sure what happened.

So i decided let me do a full shave and see where this goes.

Now i did my 3 passes as i always do.WTG,XTG AND ATG.

During all this i felt no hair being cut,felt no tugging got no nicks at all no irritation at all and a BBS SHAVE LIKE ONE OF MY BEST EVER.

Now this is confusing to me this blade did not feel like it should cut like this.

It felt like it was a hot knife going through butter but when i was honing it it did not seem to be anywhere near shave ready as the other blades doing the same process.

Any thoughts on this?



This is the straight i used,a Wadw and Butcher i had restored.

Welcome to the weird world of wedges!

I'm honestly not sure what's going on, but I've experienced something similar with a near-wedge J Wostenholm EBRO. It just didn't feel right when I tested it while honing (even compared with my other near-wedges), but it always shaves absolutely beautifully. I have very fine arm hair which never, ever works for a mid-hair test. It just bends away. So I'm really pretty heavily dependent on the TPT and the regular arm hair test. And my EBRO always feels like it has a below-par edge on the TPT, but then mows through arm hair beautifully. And of course on the only test that matters - the shave test - it's fantastic.

I have a few other near wedges: A Wheatly Bros (current favourite along with my W&B FBU), two W&B 7/8 near wedges, and none of them behave in this way. They are all fantastic shavers, but they all have very different personalities.

My 2 cents; the 1k level is the staging area, meaning if you don't have the bevel set & smoothly shaving arm hair, then there is no need to go further & start climbing the mountain.
Tape 2 layers, set an even bevel , look at your top layer of tape, refresh it, then obtain armhair shaving.
I suspect that you are honing the bevel's shoulder & not getting the edge to stone.

Good advice from Hirlau there.

Have you checked the edge with a loupe? Or tried the magic marker test?

Originally Posted by Cangooner

Good advice from Hirlau there.

Have you checked the edge with a loupe? Or tried the magic marker test?

The edge looks great but i have never done the magic marker test and wouldn't be sure how to do it.

Any links that show you what to do and look for?

It's really pretty easy. It just requires the razor and hone, a magic marker (sharpie or something similar) and a loupe or other magnifyer to help assess the edge.

You just apply ink to the edge - the whole bevel right to the edge. Then do a couple/few strokes on your hone, and then examine the edge. If the ink has been removed *right* to the edge then you are good. That means the bevel is contacting the hone properly. If however the ink is not removed from the edge, then you're experiencing what Hirlau described: honing the bevel's shoulder and not the edge.

It's basically a test to see exactly which bits of the blade are coming into contact with the hone.

Originally Posted by Cangooner

It's really pretty easy. It just requires the razor and hone, a magic marker (sharpie or something similar) and a loupe or other magnifyer to help assess the edge.

You just apply ink to the edge - the whole bevel right to the edge. Then do a couple/few strokes on your hone, and then examine the edge. If the ink has been removed *right* to the edge then you are good. That means the bevel is contacting the hone properly. If however the ink is not removed from the edge, then you're experiencing what Hirlau described: honing the bevel's shoulder and not the edge.

It's basically a test to see exactly which bits of the blade are coming into contact with the hone.

Gonna try that on some of my stubborn straights.
Would you know of a link or thread that shows under magnification what the bevels should look like after good honing processes?

I don't know of any offhand, but you can probably find some here in the forum.

But very briefly, you want to look for an even bevel. I.e. one that is shaped consistently from the shoulder to the edge. When you look at an uneven bevel under magnification it should be pretty easy to spot which areas are contacting the hone properly and which ones aren't. They will have different angles, will reflect light differently, and, well, they just look different.

Because of taping/not taping, technique, and pressure, it is also possible that *your* bevel will not align perfectly with a pre-existing bevel. For example, if the previous owner did not use tape and you add a couple of layers, you may get a perfectly good bevel at the edge that will be distinct from what will look like a secondary bevel, simply because you are dealing with slightly different anlges. Similarly if someone used excessive pressure (although less of an issue with a wedge-y blade) that too can extend a pre-existing bevel up into an area that you may not touch.

Don't worry about that.

Focus instead on whether you are addressing the edge itself. That's the bit that matters.

If its shaving like you say leave it alone
My wedges are the same. Always seem to struggle with the honing and think they are not sharp enough, then I shave and they're perfect.

Originally Posted by England

If its shaving like you say leave it alone
My wedges are the same. Always seem to struggle with the honing and think they are not sharp enough, then I shave and they're perfect.

That's exactly what i am thinking now.

I don't want to touch it at all just want to shave with it again.

But it sucks to know that it is great and you are not sure why.