Thread: Having trouble with a heel not getting the bevel set

Hi all,

I participated in the JaNorton honing month using only the norton 4/8 and had excellent results. I managed to shave almost the entire month with just 2 Spikes I honed myself. Having said that it should be obvious I am new to honing my own razors.

Now the problem.....

I have a 7 day set of Union Cutlery Spikes that I have been working on. 1 of them refuses to get a bevel on the heel even though the rest of it is nice and even, it just tapers off at a point just before the heel and then nothing. The opposite side seems to be ok, and water on the hones pushes evenly across during X strokes. Oh, and I use Lynn's Circles technique on the 4k for setting the bevels. Now I have a King 800 and a King 1200 also, but I have had little to no success setting bevels using the courser grits, but have managed to hone 7 other razors with excellent results. I also have a C12k I use for finishing, but I have not taken this particular razor to it due to the seemingly lack of bevel on one side. Since spikes are virtual V wedges, though small in size, I use 2 layers of tape when honing them usually. I have tried 2, 1 and none with no change.

I've checked for it being warped and as far as I can tell it lay's flat on the stone (4k) but the loupe (30x) just doesn't see anything at the heel as far as a bevel goes. I think I'm missing something here.

I haven't tried to shave with it, and it is the only one in the set that is like it. If it is warped, is it trash or is there a technique that will get that spot??

Any advice is very welcome and thanks in advance!!

Mike

Hey Mike,

Don't you love those Spikes? I found one at an antique store in Sheridan, WY. It is one of my favorite shavers. 7 day set - Wow!!

Not exactly sure of your problem (a picture might clarify), but at the meet last fall, I showed Glen a Genco Heavy I was having problems with. He pointed out a "hook" at the heel. It was very subtle, but at the very heel, there was sort of a point. He took my blade to his DMT325. It is kind of hard to describe. It looked like he was going to breadknife it - vertical, edge to the stone, but he held it so only the heel was on the plate. He did a few circles and rounded the heel slightly to take off the little point there. I took it home, set the bevel on the 1K, did the rest of the progression and turned it into a great shaver.

Good luck
Randy

Check out this PDF of a honing tutorial from the 1961 barber manual in the SRP library here . They give specific instruction on dealing with the heel and the point.

You can very carefully place the razor on the hone with the "trouble spot" touching the hone and the toe slightly raised off of it. You should still be able to have the spine touching the hone and then you can do circles to get that portion up to par. This is what I do anyways. Or if you do a type of rolling x stroke then you should be able to get full contact on the edge all the way along. I hope this helps