Thread: grinding the spine

if i understand you correctly you are doing just more hallow blade not touching the thickness of the back of the straight razor.By making more hallow you are degrease wideness of the hone wear on the back?
is this right?

What I have seen more times than not is when someone uses a dremel with a flap wheel to grind down the spine wear and the rust and pits from a blade is that although it may look nice, when you go to hone it most of the uneven wear comes back on both the spine and edge. I really think that using something like my Bader with the 2 inch belt and actually regrinding the razor in proper proportion on a wheel helps here.

Lynn

Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

if i understand you correctly you are doing just more hallow blade not touching the thickness of the back of the straight razor.By making more hallow you are degrease wideness of the hone wear on the back?
is this right?

I also think this is what hes asking. If anyone grinds the honewear back so that it looks more even or the blade less used. In other words, grinding the honewear that you see when you look down on a blade-grinding it away from the belly of the blade. You would see a change when you were looking at the blade "face"? Not sure on terminology-the broad side of the blade. He's not asking about getting the spine even, where you would see a change when the back or the direct edge of the blade was was facing you. Hes asking if its acceptable b/c it would decrease the amount of visible honewear, and make it look like there is less of it. (I'm not implying you're up to anything, Puff). It would be a purely aesthetic thing.

At least thats what I think, but I've been wrong before...

I have not tried it but I have thought about it. It seems like a very good idea. The hone wear/edge of spine and bevel side would still be in the same plane, but the flat area from the hone wear would be reduced from the back edge.

I think depending on the shape of the spine this would really work well.

Charlie

I decided that a sketch would be of help for some to understand my point.









PuFF

Originally Posted by PuFFaH

I decided that a sketch would be of help for some to understand my point.









PuFF

Ohhhh, I think I get it now. I didn't realize that's what you meant. Sorry, I have no comments whether or not this is a good idea or not, though. My biggest worry would be getting it all even so that you can put a good bevel back on. If you don't reshape the spine evenly, you're going to have an uneven bevel and/or uneven hone wear right back.

A lot of the old razors I have and have seen are not what you would call "evenly ground" on the spine from manufacture. I found grinding the spine evenly, very easy. The honing wear gives a very good guide and it's not that I am advocating the complete removal of the existing hone wear. Just to grind the spine till the wear is an even line and to what ever width seems appropriate.
I came to this idea mainly because I think that grinding the blade actually changes the geometry of the honing angle to some extent and this method retains the existing angle. Not that I consider the angle on any razor to be a pre-set, hard and fast set of degrees, just an approximate. I just consider the old wear pattern to be intrinsic to the razor.
I have some reground razors done in the conventional sense, and they now do not carry an even hone wear to the cutting bevel or the spine. This "wobbly" blade grinding is more likely to produce uneven hone wear than the method I put to you. ( the regrinds were done by a well known regrind specialist) If a razor is so worn that the cutting edge is too think, then the blade grind is the only option, this I concede.

PuFF