Thread: Correcting heels

Don't know if this belongs in 'Workshop' or 'Honing' so I'll leave it to 'Mod' wisdom

I have had few razors for honing lately both new & vintage that had issues with their heels.
The older razors of course are usually just worn thru many honings causing the edge to meet flush with the rear stabiliser.
The new one , well, that's just poor grinding & honing at the factory.

Honing over the stabiliser can look ugly & cause odd wear due to the blade not sitting flat on the hone so I like to correct this.

I don't recommend newbs to try this but if you're a competent honer & understand the concept you can preserve a usable edge geometry. The process can be done a number of ways. Using diamond plates is the safest but I use a low speed wet grinder (140rpm) for the most of it.
You are essentially breadknifing a new shape to the stabiliser & trying to bring the heel forward a little so grind with the blade held in a slicing direction . Offering the blade up sideways is risky even at slow speed. At high speed disaster is a given. Don't even consider a 2850rpm grinder.

Going thru a progression of coarse to fine plates will give you a nice finish but final polish on a buff is ideal.

Anyhoo pics are prolly a better explanation than my ramblings.

~ Notice very slight frown at heel & hone wear on stabiliser. This a fairly worn blade but of course still usable.

~ Haven't completely removed all hone wear but heel is well clear of stabiliser now.

~ Dip ground into heel & wear already on stabiliser. As received by customer

~ Dip & hone wear corrected. Very little metal removed.
Blade at 1k stage. Bevel was actually incomplete along the blade.

Last Picture i am having problem with it. why you have done with grinding?
couldn't you bread knifing? Sorry just want to know .

Nicely Done!!!!! Oz man...

Very nice. That's a great way to take care of this probem. I will try this next time I come acros it. Thanks!

Ray

Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

Last Picture i am having problem with it. why you have done with grinding?
couldn't you bread knifing? Sorry just want to know .

Sorry the pic is a bit bright.
Kind of bread knifed but only at the heel. Just took a bit off the stabiliser where the hone had rubbed & reshaped the small dent a little. It's a new razor & altho the bevel was incomplete I felt B'K ing the whole edge was a bit extreme & would bring the edge even closer to the stabiliser which was already a problem. It honed up quite easily.

Thanks for the tip. I have quite a few razors that will benefit from this treatment. Also a great time saver if it is done before honing through all that metal. I have learned so much here at SRP in a relatively short time.
Mike