Thread: Slight twist to the spine. Is there a cure for razor scoliosis?

I've been working on a bunch of old razors. Today I finally got the hone up and running (I'd been having a hell of a time getting wet/dry sandpaper good enough to flatten a Norton), and I spent a really long time standing over my rock.

One of the razors, a Victorian era Joseph Rodgers, has a very slight twist in the spine, so that the razor rocks about 1mm when laid on the hone.

Other than the bend it's in pretty good shape. There's a bit of pitting along the edge near the point, but even the cursory honing I did showed me that the edge looks solid beneath it. I'm already planning on sending some razors to the pros to get them worked on, but I'm wondering if this can be worked on, or is it a lost cause?

(It looked like the razor had been put away with a significant quantity of blood on the edge -- the worst of the tarnish was in loops and whorls, as though it'd been laid down as a viscous liquid with a brush)

If it only moves 1mm when you lay it on the hone you're doing well...!

There's no way to correct that, you just have to adjust your honing stroke to compensate for it.

These old sheffields usually have something up with them, be it warps, uneven grinds or just plain weird spine wear from years of touch up honing by multiple owners.

Certainly I've never honed one that lay flat on the stone right away and didn't require any sort of altered honing stroke! And sheffields form the bulk of my collection.

If you're not sure how best to hone it I'd say send it to a pro for honing.

That's exactly what I wanted to know. I'm still enough of a noob to have no clear idea of what's a show-stopper when it comes to usability. I'd really like to use this razor, I was a bit afraid it wouldn't be possible!

I would have to agree that running into an unevenness, whatever it is from, is common enough with older razors. Off the top of my head, of the 13 razors I've honed in the past month or so, two or three have laid perfectly flat. One was a NNOS Dubl Duck, the others were probably just lucky. I suggest checking the wiki, it has some good tips on what types of strokes to use while honing, such as the 45deg or rolling 45deg which is what I lean towards for uneven blades.

As Stu mentioned, you have to adjust the stroke and sometime how you hold the razor on the starting point of the stroke. Most of us start with a "rolling x" and then go from there. Sometimes if it's bad we can add tape. I've found one that about all I could do to it was turn it into a slight smiler...but it turned out to be a good shaver. Weird razor actually, I think it was chromed and has nothing other than Sheffield stamped on it. Just add one layer of tape to the spine and see what you can do to it. If you can't get it right, there will be no real harm to the razor and you can send it off. You could gain some valuable experience with it...

Originally Posted by shooter74743

As Stu mentioned, you have to adjust the stroke and sometime how you hold the razor on the starting point of the stroke. Most of us start with a "rolling x" and then go from there. Sometimes if it's bad we can add tape. I've found one that about all I could do to it was turn it into a slight smiler...but it turned out to be a good shaver. Weird razor actually, I think it was chromed and has nothing other than Sheffield stamped on it. Just add one layer of tape to the spine and see what you can do to it. If you can't get it right, there will be no real harm to the razor and you can send it off. You could gain some valuable experience with it...

That last bit convinced me! Yesterday I spent a couple of quality hours over the hone with some of my less-than-perfectly flat blades. I didn't get the old Sheffield up to snuff yet, but I did get a Chicago MFG CO. blade (with a similar slight twist) to a pretty glorious state of shavability. Good enough that I gave myself razor burn without knowing it because I got overenthusiastic with that 'but there's a tiny bit of stubble there, I should be able to get it off' trick.

Thanks everyone for encouraging me to try on the less-than-perfect blade. Rolling Xs worked great!

I'm really looking forward to sending a couple off to a pro so I'll have something other than my face to compare against!

Originally Posted by Voidmonster

I'm really looking forward to sending a couple off to a pro so I'll have something other than my face to compare against!

That is a wise choice...congratulations on working that other one out!