Thread: Frowns and Chipped Edges...

Alright I need some help from the master restorers. As mentioned in a previous thread, I picked up some blades from the Ebay while home for Christmas. One of them is a FW Engels Warren Velvet Edge. The pic the ebay seller had up was pretty poor, and it looked like it could have a chip cause of the light refraction, but when asked, the seller responded that the edge was "damn near perfect." Well here is what that means to him.

Notice the wider bevel in the center:

Obviously a frown as seen while placing the edge on my Norton:


The second blade I got from Sapito. I had bought 3 blades from him for restoration a couple of months ago, but they never arrived to Shanghai. Unfortunately, we had no way to track them and they weren't insured. He was nice enough to offer a refund or some other blades. As I have a hard time getting old blades here, I opted for the razors. One of them that arrived was an Old Wade & Butcher For Gentlemen's Use. It has a few chips on the edge. The one at the heel is the worst of the chips. It is just under 1mm. The blade is a near wedge. Probably IV or III on the Henckels Grind Chart.







My question for you guys is, are these candidates for bread-knifing, or should I try to hone them out? I have read a few different opinions on the matter. I have read all the FAQs and whatnot.
I know some people like Sham recommend taping the spine and even double taping on certain areas of the spine depending on hone wear. However, I have seen naysayers for that as well due to potential issues at later stages of honing after bevel setting. The spine of the Warren Velvet Edge does show a little more hone wear at the center than elsewhere, but not sure what technique or combination of techniques might work best.

I would like to be able to save both of these blades as I think they would both make for good shaves. I am open to any suggestions and am willing to go at it slow to get it right, just let me know what you think.

Lynn doesn't like breadkniving, nor do I. I believe someone's tagline says something along the line of "If Lynn says it, it's gotta be true." Though I've only been honing SR's a short amount of time compared to some, my background is Japanese Swords. With them, and I believe SR's, you want to remove the absolute least amount of material as possible. With simply honing it properly, you will remove the frown over time and would be able to enjoy the SR over that period of time, which would be quite a while. Breadkniving it and getting the same bevel across the entire edge would remove a LOT of steel, probably a 1/16 or more, for mostly aesthetics.

I have a Boker with a worked back with the same problem and about the same amount of frown that I plan on working on in a couple of days (new tumbler is to arrive today...mine crapped out). My plan is this: I'll tape the spine with one layer of tape and give it some edge conditioning on my King 800. Forty oval/circles on each side with medium pressure passes. Pay particular attention to how the SR is laying on the stone...too much pressure is probably what caused the frown in the first place. A day or so in walnut media, a day or so in corn cob media, attach to scales, then a real honing. I'll establish the bevel on either the same 800 or a 1000 King stone using a lot of passes with little pressure to remove quite a bit of the heel and toe material, but not focusing on the frown. Once I have a bevel on the entire edge & it will shave arm hairs along the entire edge, I'll move on to the finer stones. The first proper honing should take care of most of the frown, but not all of it. I want to use this SR for years to come, so after a couple of honing's, the frown will be all but gone. Considering that I have close to a dozen SR's in my rotation, I'll get several years of shaving out of it before the frown is completely gone and the bevel is the same along the entire edge. The SR will tell you when you need to hone again...

If you don't want to spend the time on it...you could always sell it to me
Scott

For that W&B, I would recommend a few layers of tape, and a low grit stone. Mebbe 400 or so. Hone out those chips.

For the first razor: personally, I would breadknife it. YMMV

I've been there and done that bread knife thing more than once. I recently had to hone a 2mm crack out of a Solingen full hollow and I tried something Lynn had suggested as an alternative to bread knifing. I honed on a DMTXX 120 with the spine slightly up off of the stone. I did circles and kept the spine up until I was almost there.

At that point I put 3 pieces of tape on the spine and continued on a DMT 325. As I got to the point where I was just about there I went to 2 pieces of tape and when I got past the crack I went to 1 layer of tape.

When I moved on to the point where I could pass a TNT and the bevel looked good under the 30x I removed the tape and went to the 1k Naniwa. This is what I do now because IME the bread knife leaves one heck of a lot of work at the end and this method spreads it out a bit and it worked well for me.

That sounds like good advice, JimmyHAD. I will try that out in the future.

Thanks guys,
Seems like everyone feels both could be honed out. Would a 220 Norton be too aggressive?

Also, it was mentioned to hone in the initial stages with the spine off the hone slightly. Can I do this with aid, i.e. several (4-5) layers of tape or something else backing the spine, or does it require a greater angle and I need to do it free-handed. Will it matter if the angle varies slightly in the initial stage?

And Scott... I think I will be keeping this one. After getting a FW Engels Special done by Max, it has become one of my top shavers. I am looking to see if they are generally all of this quality or Max just makes everything better .

Originally Posted by Shangers

Thanks guys,
Seems like everyone feels both could be honed out. Would a 220 Norton be too aggressive?

Also, it was mentioned to hone in the initial stages with the spine off the hone slightly. Can I do this with aid, i.e. several (4-5) layers of tape or something else backing the spine, or does it require a greater angle and I need to do it free-handed. Will it matter if the angle varies slightly in the initial stage?

And Scott... I think I will be keeping this one. After getting a FW Engels Special done by Max, it has become one of my top shavers. I am looking to see if they are generally all of this quality or Max just makes everything better .

You could certainly use 3 or 4 layers of tape and a little bit of pressure on the 220 for the initial chip removal and to re-profile the blade on the one with the frown. Here is the 1961 barber manual excerpt on honing . On page 24 there is good stuff on blade profile with a couple of illustrations and some descriptive text. You might benefit from giving it a look before you start.

IME any FWE made razor I've run across has been a darn good one and I've got a half dozen.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Here is the 1961 barber manual excerpt on honing .On page 24 there is good stuff on blade profile with a couple of illustrations and some descriptive text. You might benefit from giving it a look before you start.

IME any FWE made razor I've run across has been a darn good one and I've got a half dozen.

Thanks Jimmy, I had downloaded and read that barber's manual before, but was good to go back to it. I took all you guys advice and started working on the Engels. It took awhile on the Norton 220, but seems to have corrected.

Honed by lifting the spine off the hone, doing COPIOUS numbers of circles till it started to correct. It is more straight now, and I actually started trying to apply the barber's manual advice and put a slight smile in the blade. I stopped where it is for now, but it will get more treatment on subsequent honing sessions. For now it is shave ready and no frown, and that is what counts.

I cleaned up the blade a bit. Fixed the peening at the pivot point, and finished honing her out through the Guangxi Stone. I kept one layer of tape on the spine because I noticed the spine was blued, and was still in pretty good shape. I may end of doing new scales for her it later.

Here are the pics of the frown correction.
Before:


After with the start of a slight smile:








Now, I need to work on the Wade and Butcher. I just noticed in the initial one over that the hone wear on the W&B is uneven. Pics to come of this.

Nice job

Good job!