Thread: How to tell signs of Hone Wear

This could help a lot of newbies like myself who are looking for razors in antique stores. I read often, especially on sales threads that this razor shows little signs of hone wear or moderate hone wear, or heavy hone wear. Is it mostly about the width of the spine? Or how thick it is looking down from the spine to the edge?

I think if there was a post of pics showing examples of these, it would be very valuable to non experienced members.

Thanks,

Mark

Here's a recent pic that illustrates hone wear even though I believe it's actually just a shadow on the blade. Look at the first picture by CLICKING HERE

Pretend the razor in the first picture DID have significant uneven hone wear near the heel of the razor on both the spine and the heel edge bevel. Again, I don't think this person's razor actually does have wear like that, I think it's just a reflection while taking the photo but.....what a great reflection for illustrative purposes, eh?

Study that first photo. Pretending that was hone wear, do you see a difference from how the spine and edge look on the toe of this razor vs. the heel? Big difference. This would be VERY uneven hone wear. Picture the "wear" on the heel's spine and edge extending evenly to the toe. That would be even but significant hone wear. Does that make sense after seeing an illustration like this?

We do see the term "hone wear" bandied about almost as often as we see the word "razor" on SRP, don't we? I was no different than other newbies when I started out in that I thought: hone wear = bad, very bad. Not true. And even in most cases...big deal. Hone wear in its lightest sense simply means the razor was used! Again, big deal. Unless a person is looking for a mint NOS collectible, EVEN hone wear does not detract from rehoning a vintage razor to great shavability. UNEVEN hone wear could mean two things: 1) The person who did hone a perfectly good razor used poor technique. 2) The razor has abnormal issues (uneven spine thickness, warp, etc).

I've seen some newer members through time comment on great shaving vintage razors with even hone wear and say something like: "Well, it DOES have some hone wear as if it's a negative that brings that razor down a bunch of notches". I chuckle when I see such comments mainly because I was there at one point as well.

I hope this helps.

Chris L

Here's a pic of hone wear.

The spine bevel should be nice and even, but here it is not.

My theory is that a razor with low hone wear could be a razor that never shaved well to start with or it would have gotten more use. Of Course we know this is not always true, but it is another way to look at hone wear. When you pass over a blade with a lot of hone wear you could be passing over a GREAT shave As long as the wear is pretty even I don't worry to much about it.

Seraphim, what happened to that blade? It looks like the shoulder was welded. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't, but it sure looks like something funky happened to the metal there.)

Originally Posted by Utopian

Seraphim, what happened to that blade? It looks like the shoulder was welded. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't, but it sure looks like something funky happened to the metal there.)

That's not my razor!

I just found an example on Ebay for the sake of explanation...

I find that on some blades, usually due to uneven shaping of the spine/edge relationship that 'uneven' wear can occur - this is caused by slight blips in the forging/grinding process, and in order to have a parallel spine/edge more metal has to be removed at certain points than others. This doesn't mean the blade is 'scrap' or even 'poor' - most take a good edgeand are perfectly usable. What it DOES mean is that the razor - and let's not forget these were mass-production pieces in the main - has passed a tolerance inspection maybe by a whisker, deemed OK by a QC guy although not quite 'perfect'.

True wedge blades tend to exacerbate this visual problem as, due to their flatter-sided blades the area of metal in contact with the hone tends to be larger, even on a very well-made piece. This tends to show up a greater hone wear - even though in fact very little honing may have taken place. It's just due to the fact that a larger plane face is presented to the hone.

Strewth this sounds complicated! The upshot of it is this - don't be put off by 'hone wear' too much unless it is wildly uneven - it's the edge that matters.

Originally Posted by Doc

My theory is that a razor with low hone wear could be a razor that never shaved ... When you pass over a blade with a lot of hone wear you could be passing over a GREAT shave As long as the wear is pretty even I don't worry to much about it.

I totally agree. Another way to say it is, if you find a razor with lots of hone wear, it means someone loved that razor and used it for a long time. Good sign that it is easy to hone, strops up well, and shaves beautifully.

And this has been my experience.

Originally Posted by Utopian

Seraphim, what happened to that blade? It looks like the shoulder was welded. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't, but it sure looks like something funky happened to the metal there.)

That is a pretty common place to see lots of pitting on older razors. Someone has polished out the discoloration but the pitting remains. I've seen this a lot. The other place you see funny stuff is on the toe of the razor right at the place that is exposed when the razor is closed. There is usually a dark line here, and sometimes red rust and open pitting.

The razor in that picture looks like it is frowning. For me, it probably wouldn't be worth the shipping, even though it appears to be a Case razor (I could be wrong).