Didn't need a magnifying glass to see it. I did look at it in bright sunlight though just to be sure. It was obvious the blade wasn't even contacting the top cap in a couple places. This isn't my pic but mine looked similar to this one with the blade pushed down on both ends and pushed up in the middle. After the file work, it looks nice and even.
Brian , I sure hope you did not ruin your razor. Martin, Did you only need to spend the $70 plus whatever shipping was to Denmark? If so that is great.
Shaved with it this morning and it was way better than it used to be. I had absolutely no irritation after the shave which I'm not sure I've ever done with the Weber. If I have, it hasn't happened many times. My baseplate looked like it was polished pretty heavily with a buffing wheel which made it look nice but that sort of buffing really isn't a good idea for surfaces that need to have tight tolerances. The way you usually would do this is to polish first and then machine the critical surfaces to the right dimension. By buffing last, it's pretty much impossible to keep a surface from getting un-flat. Hope nobody takes this to mean I'm not happy with my Weber. I like it a lot. Especially now. It's a great value and I'm not unhappy in the least that I needed to spend a few minutes with a file to get the most from it. I'll be using it for the next week or so. Probably long enough to at least run a few blades through it and make sure my initial excitement holds up.
Did you file down the cap or the base plate? I took a closer look on my specimen after reading your story and searching for more and "knock on wood" my Weber is as straight as possible. I even took my 12x magnifier to be sure. I can't see it's uneven and the blade also looks straight loaded in the razor. I can see online there are many stories on the problem. Had I known that prior purchase, I'm not sure I would have dared get it. I spend $84 in total, whereas the $14 was shipping. An additional $52 would have been added, had it been picked for customs.
I wouldn't use a file......if you have trued surface, ie a thick piece of plate glass then you can place the head onto of a polishing grip, (super fine oxide paper) add oil and slowly true the deck. Personally I haven't had issues with my razors, but I'll be looking at my 4 Webers closely now. I purchased two of each with the intent of sending one of each type for DLC. I prefer the Bulldog for my face, and the classic for my head.
It seems the inspiration goes round and round here After reading up on how to test the Weber for uneven rails (thanks @Darkbulb for the Weber thread), I tried mine and it wobbled :-( Upon very close inspection I could see a tiny tiny wave in the blade on one side, but after having used my Weber exclusively for the past many months I can say that I've never felt any downsides in shave quality. I've always claimed my Weber was straight, alas it's not, or was - read on. Buuuut... as the nitpick I am, I lost every love towards my Weber and as if it wasn't enough I also dropped it on the floor while loading a blade trying to inspect the wave for the zillionth time - dinged and scracted the baseplate. ARGH! I almost ordered an ATT to be done with it. So, I Googled a bit online after having read and remembered this old post and found a follow-through guide on how to even the rails. I coloured the rails with a marker to follow the grinding closely and with my fine-grit wet-stone I carefully and slowly grinded the top off the uneven spot (I had a small hill that made the blade wave). So now the rails are 100% perfect straight I then took some Autosol (chrome polish with fine abrasive elements) and polished and buffed the life out of the entire razor, even removed the ding and scratch from the drop and now my Weber is more shiny than new, but most importantly - 100% even and straight. I can't make the plate wobble and I can't see any wave-form to the blade. There's even gap all around and the birds are singing, I'm almost sure they are.
Great you got it all back to where you wanted it to be I wonder if you'll notice any difference at all when you shave with it - sans wave - now.
It's difficult to say. It's past my bedtime but in the name of science I had to shave with my "new and improved" Weber. It felt more forgiving and more smooth. Less prone to bite. I had learned to tame the old Weber and considered it a great shaver. If this new experience is solid I can't get my arms down. It's so good. The final touch if you will.
I hope you like the shave a little better now Martin. I can sure say I like my Weber much better after fixing that wavy blade issue. If mine weren't such a sweet shaver now, I'd be selling it at the prices they're getting on eBay right now.
So far it's better, but of course, with only one test-shave it could be coincidence. It's definitely not worse. I sweated last night when I pulled the wet-stone from my workshop. Haha. But I figured, easy does it. And easy sure did it. It was very very easy. If you have the issue with yours you could do it.
Those are easily obtainable, should you need it If we didn't live so far apart, I'd be happy to do it for you.
