Yeah, it was pretty brutal. They don't use it in the final battle, I think they test it but go with the ice pick instead.
Clearly their enemies were not traditional wet shavers.....issue a threat against me with a str8, even an idle one, and you got me motivated.
Nope, not warped at all, just wavy along the edge. Cool. Should make a nice guinea pig for my journey to honing proficiency. Might even get a usable shaver out of the ordeal. I watched undream's restoration videos on YouTube and the idea of grinding the edge down with some 220 sandpaper seems pretty doable. Gonna need to invest in the full Norton starter kit, I guess. Or, I could just bin this thing and cut my losses. Am I really going to do enough razor restoration to justify the $140 for the full set of Norton stones? Hmmmm....
It depends what you really want to do with str8's. If you want to hone your own razors , you need hones, eventually. If your just looking to learn to shave with a str8. I would send your blade to Glen to be honed. Since it's not warped, the edge can be cleaned up pretty easy. The razor doesn't look bad in the pics. I would send it off to be honed by a pro.
The question I'm faced with is: Which set of hones do I need? The Norton starter kit has the 200/1000 and the 4000/8000 stones. The 200/1000 seems like it wouldn't get used much if all I was doing was maintaining an edge on a honed razor. Those lower grits are for establishing new bevels and such, right? That's why I was wondering how much restoration type work I want/can/need to do. I definitely don't need more projects around my house. I think getting this razor cleaned up and honed, then maintaining it with a 4000/8000 stone is where I want to be right now. But, I've gotta learn on something and a $13 dollar razor...that will be come a $40 dollar razor if I send it off to be professionally honed...seems like the way to do that.
IMHO the 200 would not be used much. The 1000 is of utmost importance when setting the bevel. My honing greatly improved once I started spending more time on the 1000 to get a good bevel. I actually go from the 1000 straight to 8000 to finish the edge. Watching Glens video on 1 stone honing really helped me. It works for me. But the technique may not be for everyone.
At this point in time, I mention that a wise man once said (and I'm paraphrasing at best) that Nortons are all you need and that many people, including some of the best honemeisters in the world, learned how to hone on Nortons. The 1k, 4k, and 8k is all you need and you'll probably rarely need the 1k unless you are going to salvage poor abused razors.
A'ight. I picked up a 12x12" slab of granite floor tile at Home Depot today, along with five sheets of 220 sandpaper to see if I'd be able to get the edge of this razor back to as close to straight as possible. I did a lot of swipes back and forth with the blade at steep angle, but that wasn't getting things straightened out effectively, so I started breadknifing the thing and that produced far better results. I don't know how much straighter I can get this thing with this set up. It's pretty damn straight right now, but when I put the edge on the granite slab and shine a light from behind, I can see the tiniest bit of light coming through near the toe and heel. I think this razor used to have a bit of a smile to it (if the slight curve of the spine is any indication) so the toe and the heel seem to be swooping upward a tiny bit. I'd have to grind off quite a bit more metal to get the edge up to even with those. Anyway, attached is a picture of the edge after my efforts earlier today.
