New razor has a chip - suggested response?

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Originally Posted by RezDog

A couple of thoughts here. I am presuming that you are new to straight razor shaving and honing. If that is in fact true your razor may be down for longer if you try to fix it yourself. That is a guess and may be way off base. Honing is a little tricky, some people pick it up easier than others. I'm not sure you want to learn on a brand new razor, although you do want one that is free of geometry issues. It is a personal choice. Do you have a second razor?

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Yes, new to straights. Not new to honing; done a fair bit on knives and have made a couple of knives in the past. Honing a straight razor seems, from the vids, to be a reasonably straightforward affair since the blade is contacting at the spine and edge.

I do have a second razor. An eBay McDonald not shave-ready. My plan HAD been to get used to shaving with the Ralf Aust and use it as a model for what a well honed blade looks like as I was practicing with the McDonald ...

Non angled pic

Hmmm. It is after all your razor. I hear from knife guys from time to time the changing to straight is not as easy as they thought. I do my own honing and transitioned into straights without it being epic. You can try and still send it out if you need to. I don't think you can take that chip out without resetting the whole bevel though, however I am not the authority and could be wrong. Good luck.

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Originally Posted by Headcrowny

Non angled pic

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You know, looking at this closeup, it seems to me that the blade perhaps was made with a touch too much of a squared off aspect - note how there's a lot of bevel showing where the chip is and very little along the edge. Perhaps it was that extension which caused it to be extra thin and therefore prone to breakage. But what it also seems to say to me is that if the blade were honed there it would actually be remaking the curvature into what it "should" have been; more of a nicely circular edge merging into the flat edge. What do you think?

+1 on I can still send it out. That's where I'm leaning right now. It wouldn't be reasonable to ask SRP to fix it as part of the second honing free, I don't think. This wouldn't be a regular honing; it would be a repair. And if I'm going to pay for a repair, might as well try to fix it myself first. At worst it would just mean a slightly more involved repair and at best I don't have to bother anyone with it at all.

In the end it is your blade and your call. Under that circumstances sending it out is the safest way, doing it yourself is risky and if that fails you can always send it it out. Simple as that.

Bob

+3 send it out. Having practiced on some low rent blades I'm glad I didn't start of something nice. Things can happen fast.

Didn't you say you bought a DMT 325 with your set up ???

Put the tip of the razor down on the DMT at about a 45° angle, edge down toward the DMT, draw back and lift at the tang at the same time using no downward pressure just the weight of the blade,, this is easier to show in 2 seconds then type :(

It might take 2-3 draws to smooth that off there, strop the razor slowly and make sure it is leaving no marks on the strop and yer ready to shave...

If I get time on the camera later I will snap some pics, or a quick Vid, don't attempt this unless it makes perfect sense from my lame description hehehe

This is the exact same fix as Muting a Spike point razor..

Aaaaand. It's done. Took the McDonald in hand and went from 1000 to 12000. Looks great (haven't tried it for shaving though). And, since the stones were wet anyway ... honed the chip away in the way that seemed sensible and then did a final 12000 hone on the entire edge, just ta show 'em! (Monty Python quote).

Looks good to me. We'll see how it works out in a few hours!

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I did indeed. And read your reply after I'd finished the job, unfortunately. Had fun though!
I thought about using the DMT but figured I'd go with what made sense to me, especially after the honing of the McDonald seemed to go so well.

I'll tell you, though, the suction that lapping those stones on the DMT causes is huge! Unexpectedly so.