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Honing the Wedge and smile faces on the blade.

Bart said:
I'm not inclined to visit SRP at the moment, since I am banned there as of this morning. I can only guess why.

Kind regards,
Bart.
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Insurrection. Insubordination. Revolutionary ideas. I can think of many reasons. They all make me laugh a little bit.

hi_bud_gl said:
I like you Bart
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The wine made me highlight this quote. :p

Much ado about nothing, I agree. But this is how many discussions on matters of opinion end up. They key is to respect everones right to their opinion whether you respect their opinion or not.

Not having much experience with honing, I am intrigued with the bevel angle question. Could you measure the bevel angle at a few points on the blade Sham? Is the bevel angle shallower at the toe?
 
I think that the bevel and spine wear rates differ. Some people beleive that the spine and bevel wear at the same rate, resulting in the same bevel angle for the life of the razor. There is one reason why I find this unreasonable. The spines on razors come to a slight point on both sides, you hone through this quicker than when it gets worn down flat. So the bevel angle in the beginning will be normal, as the spine wears faster in the beginning, the bevel angle will be less. However, once the spine wears down flatter with more surface area it will wear out slower than the bevel if the bevel isn't up past the grind. This will result in the bevel being worn out quicker than the spine, so the results are now backwards from the beginning.

I can see this might read confusingly for some people, sorry! This is just my theory on how it works. I haven't taken a new razor and measured everything every time I hone with the angle calculator. Someone should!
 
Some time ago I went to the workshop of Mike Blue. Mike makes pattern welded Damascus steel. He has a Rockwell hardness tester. We tested a Herder razor both on the spine and on the edge. The spine measured 54 HRC, the edge measured 58.9 HRC.
 
I hadn't considered that Randy. Me and a buddy CNC'd two razor blanks, the tangs both tested 59 after heat treating. The edges were to thin to test and still be able to look nice. We tempered ours in a temp controlled furnace though, so the whole thing was probably pretty close. This was all done at Vincenness university's machine shop.

Was the Herder a full hollow or a wedge? I want to be able to test some of my full hollows in places other than the spine/tang but can't figure out how to do it. Even if you did, I think the flex would throw it off. Try putting a peice of tissue or cigarette paper underneath the razor before you test. Throws it way out.

Thanks for the info and making me change my theory!
 
The Herder was a razor blank that had been heat treated & tempered at the factory but not finish ground. If completed it would have been a full hollow. I believe that the reason the spine was softer can be explained if you watch the Dovo video and the "rack" that the blanks are held in for heat treating & quenching, In the "rack" the spines are placed one against the other with no space between them but the edge of the blades does have space between them. Thus the spines will not have enough room( space) between them to be properly quenched but the edges will. I believe that accounts for the difference in HRC. The quenchant has to be able to completely surround the steel for a full transition to martinsite.

Just my $.02,:)
 
Whole conversation start when Bart has doubt about the blade in the pictures has been unnecessary hone wear on the spine.
Lets make this topic not too complicated. This is simple.

when you hone any blade spine and edge will wear down. (which one is more or less or spine is thicker then edge and so many factors we could include in here.)
All above will make more complication to real problem.
My question was.
how you can make smile face on the edge without putting hone wear to the spine of the blade.?
(lets take out taping and lifting up the spine from the hone while you hone)
The blade which we were talking about does have more hone wear on the spine toward to heel and tip .That is because that blade does have full smile .on the heel and tip side of the edge.
Does that says while person put the hone wear on the spine same time he put the hone wear to the edge.
All this simple we just try to make scientific work which is unnecessary in this case.
About differences hardness of the spine and edge is i think they get hammered thin part(edge )gets pressured more then spine .That could be the reason there is a differences .( I am not 100% sure about it)
In the other hand if spine wont wear down(lets make harder then edge) after couple of honing edge will not be able to take "v" sharpness , will just stay on the air.
This happens when you always tape the blade and hone. after couple honing there no more bevel visible to hone the blade and as a result you have to take tape out and hone the blade.
thank you.
 
randydance062449 said:
Some time ago I went to the workshop of Mike Blue. Mike makes pattern welded Damascus steel. He has a Rockwell hardness tester. We tested a Herder razor both on the spine and on the edge. The spine measured 54 HRC, the edge measured 58.9 HRC.
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That's very interesting, Randy. (Almost) 5 rockwell points is a huge difference, as Rockwell C is a logarithmic scale.
I had heard before that hardness could differ between spine and edge, but never got it confirmed out of first hand.

Thanks for posting.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Well from what I understand (the way Sheffield folks did it), when the blades were to be heat-treated, they would lay the blades on the backs (spine) in rows so they all stand edge-up on top a metal plate and placed in the furnace.

Because there were no modern industrial thermocouples at the time, the oven temperature would be quite higher than necessary, so the blades stayed on the oven only long enough for the heat to be conducted through the metal plate, through the spines and up to the edges and change the color of the steel at the edge (straw color) and then the blades would be removed.

I suspect at that point the spine would be at a much higher temp than near the edge, and thus the spine would be softer, but it wouldn’t matter, the temper of the steel near the cutting edge is what’s important.
 
Just a quickie
here is my c200 yr old wade and butcher 8/8 wedge, as near to a full wedge as any razor, and as wide a blade as you find, now see the smile? note how the spine and bevel are more or less a nice uniform size along the entire blade, hows the shave? wonderful :thumbup:

Photo0293.jpg


Best Regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
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