Hone Wear

Good Day Gents,

I recently was talking to a fellow straight user and was trying to explain hone wear and proceeded to show him what it looks like and that got me thinking (pretty dangerous for me) anyway I have a few that have what I call no hone wear and some what I would call light, medium and heavy but I honestly don't know if what I call none thru heavy is correct so is there a way to determine how to correctly say a razor has none or has heavy wear, is it just a visual thing or is there a measurement thing.

Here are a few of mine that I am talking about, so am i correct in my description or is there an actual measurement

Wear: None



Wear: Medium



Wear: Heavy

What would this be classified as?





This is what I had to do with a NOS C-MON microtome (Hollow on one side, wedge on the other) with a wonky uneven grind (warp) to get a bevel across the blade

I'd call the first one extremely light or almost none.

The second one light.


The third one Light to medium.


Walt: I'd call that a Microtome. Wedges are virtually never ground well. I think the hollowing process is used to correct a LOT of issues from the blanks that the general shaping skips over unless you get extremely lucky. That doesn't even look bad for a wedge/near-wedge grind to me.

SliceOfLife said:

I'd call the first one extremely light or almost none.

The second one light.


The third one Light to medium.


Walt: I'd call that a Microtome. Wedges are virtually never ground well. I think the hollowing process is used to correct a LOT of issues from the blanks that the general shaping skips over unless you get extremely lucky. That doesn't even look bad for a wedge/near-wedge grind to me.

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Yep, I agree

McVeyMac said:

What would this be classified as?





This is what I had to do with a NOS C-MON microtome (Hollow on one side, wedge on the other) with a wonky uneven grind (warp) to get a bevel across the blade

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For a second I thought this was [MENTION=34037]rockviper[/MENTION] 's wapi. lol

This was a SOTD pic that I saw on a german forum and just had to save.

Gents, thanks so much for helping with hone wear, I am guessing what I have been calling heavy is not correct and thats a good thing.

McVeyMac said:

What would this be classified as?





This is what I had to do with a NOS C-MON microtome (Hollow on one side, wedge on the other) with a wonky uneven grind (warp) to get a bevel across the blade

Click to expand...

That razor looks well loved. I love using and looking at razors that someone else has used, just not razors that have been dropped, sharpened like a knife, etc.
The wedge side looks like this picture was taken after you set the bevel with a dmt 325 I'm guessing. I would like to see a picture after you finish honing it.

Lmarkow said:

For a second I thought this was @rockviper 's wapi. lol

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Now that is funny Larry. [MENTION=34037]rockviper[/MENTION] the Omote killer!

Adamandlupe said:

That razor looks well loved. I love using and looking at razors that someone else has used, just not razors that have been dropped, sharpened like a knife, etc.
The wedge side looks like this picture was taken after you set the bevel with a dmt 325 I'm guessing. I would like to see a picture after you finish honing it.

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I took the picture after the Atoma 400 once the bevel was set, so you are close. I have not taken any after the finish yet, but it shaves very well now. The conventional wisdom about honing a microtome is 1 layer of tape on the hollow side, and 4 to five layers on the wedge side. When I tried this I learned how bad the warp/uneven grind was, so this was the only solution in order to make it shave. I probably ruined boot 75% of it's value as these are rare in general, and I don't think C - MON made many. But I was tired of having it in my case with no purpose.

After reading several responses I looked at pretty much all my straights and visually the worst one i have is the last one I put in the original post so if it's what you guys are calling light to medium I am super pleased !!

McVeyMac said:

Now that is funny Larry. [MENTION=34037]rockviper[/MENTION] the Omote killer!



I took the picture after the Atoma 400 once the bevel was set, so you are close. I have not taken any after the finish yet, but it shaves very well now. The conventional wisdom about honing a microtome is 1 layer of tape on the hollow side, and 4 to five layers on the wedge side. When I tried this I learned how bad the warp/uneven grind was, so this was the only solution in order to make it shave. I probably ruined boot 75% of it's value as these are rare in general, and I don't think C - MON made many. But I was tired of having it in my case with no purpose.

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I like your way of thinking! I would like to see how it looks now.

I've got a Boker Microtome that's about half hollow on one side, completely flat on the other. I gave up trying to hone it because I don't need to take tissue samples.

Jnatcat said:

After reading several responses I looked at pretty much all my straights and visually the worst one i have is the last one I put in the original post so if it's what you guys are calling light to medium I am super pleased !!

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You need more razors then. I can reach a half dozen with more wear than that one from where I'm sitting, and I don't store my razors here.