Honing challenge

[loueedacat1]

I have a Crown & Sword 6/8 spike point that is giving me a heck of a hassle in honing it. Model is 1720 or something like that, slick black scales.

I've gotten it where it shaves fine - look a little sloppy at 4PM but ok. But it's nowhere near where the 30 razors I use regularly are at, and C&S is an ERN brand so it should be stellar.

The edge was a little ragged, and there appeared to be heavy hone wear on one side of the toe but not the other (and looking at the spine it was even on both sides, so something is up). Wasn't visible in pics on ebay and I only noticed when trying to figure out why it's not honing easily.

I've tried two layer of tape, on the idea that a sharper angle might overcompensate for the broader bevel on one side of toe. Now I'm experimenting with heavy 1k washboarding with no tape to try to even out the bevel on both sides.

Any other ideas?

The razor has gorgeous balance so I WANT it to work.

[drmoss_ca]

Well if the hone wear on each side of the spine is even, but that one one side of the toe of the blade is greater than the other, it has either belonged to a very uneven honer (who placed a finger on the blade in one direction only), or the blade is warped. Without looking at it I can't tell you which it is, but you might be able to tell by laying the blade flat on a hone and looking for a gap under the edge near the point when it is lying on the side with the smaller amount of bevel wear.

Chris

[matt321]

There is also the "watch the water" bit when honing on water stones. With just the right amount of free water on the stone surface you can see where the blade edge loses contact with the stone.

[loueedacat1]

good thoughts. I have been watching the water and it looks ok but I still wonder if it might not be warped, and the water might only look even based on me putting pressure to accomodate the warp.

[loueedacat1]

I think that's it - it's warped - I remember now having to pay attnetion to leaing on the edge in one direction to get any pressure on the toe.

[Life2short1971]

I have a razoe with the same symptoms you describe. Mine is warped right at the edge so there is an almost unnoticeable roll of the bevel. Try looking at the reflection at the bevel and see if the reflection is equal from both sides.To fix mine I would have to take an eighth inch off to get an equal bevel on both sides.

[loueedacat1]

I cracked the code on this one last night and got a great shave this morning. I muted the spike point, which also removed the part of the toe that was a mess. And then washboarded it on my minosharp 1k that is clearly lower grit than my shapton 1k, and then did my normal shapton 1k, shapton 4k, coticule, escher all at one layer tape, and then did some extra escher work with 2 layers of tape, and whalla nice edge.

I think both removing the bad tip by muting the spike and spending time on a coarser stone really did it.

[loueedacat1]

I cracked the code on this one last night and got a great shave this morning. I muted the spike point, which also removed the part of the toe that was a mess. And then washboarded it on my minosharp 1k that is clearly lower grit than my shapton 1k, and then did my normal shapton 1k, shapton 4k, coticule, escher all at one layer tape, and then did some extra escher work with 2 layers of tape, and whalla nice edge.

I think both removing the bad tip by muting the spike and spending time on a coarser stone really did it.

I removed even a little more of my bad toe with one of those sandpaper sponges, and got an even nicer edge. Shave this morning was pure BBS. So I overcame whatever the flaw was at the toe (warp or bad overhoning) but removing the flaw, and the blade honed beautifully. This wouldn't work if the flaw wasn't right at the point of the toe of course.

[matt321]

Nice work!