Thread: Hand Sanding A Blade, Redux

Reading the SRP Wiki is, truly, an education in itself. Lots of great stuff, and no matter where a guy begins, all roads lead to success. So, when I read the excellent article Hand Sanding A Blade, I failed to evaluate it with regard to my (then) current project -- restoring a fine 190+ year-old I.Barber 7/8" stub tail (and posts following). In this instance, where the author wrote: "Instead of circular sanding you could also speed up metal removal by sanding first from spine to edge, and then from heel to toe, and then from spine to edge again, but sanding from spine to edge is uncomfortable because the distance is so short" and, more to the point, where he writes and repeats "spine to edge... spine to edge."

I followed that mantra, with these horrifying results:



I say "horrifying", because by sanding from spine-to-edge, I completely lost the all-important "Line of Demarcation" between the spine and body of the blade. Why is this important? Why does it matter? Why? Because this "geographic" feature is what rests on the hone, creating the geometry that sets the angle for the blade-edge, and determines the quality of the initial bevel and the resulting sharpness obtained from the honing process.

I consulted other informational material in my possession, and found the following photograph in Bill Ellis' Straight Razor Restoration Guidelines (excerpted and included here, with the express written consent of its author):



It is vitally important to not sand from spine-to-edge and, instead, to be scrupulous in ensuring that one only sands from edge-to-spine (as the author's annotation clearly states). Had I done so, the spine edge of the I.Barber would still be crisp, the blade still clean and shiny, and I would have been able to set an even bevel and produce a "wicked sharp" cutting edge.

"If I could turn back the hands of Time..."