Hello all. I wrote a while back about a new Filarmonica razor I
bought. It needed some work being brand new and I just got to thinking
I had not seen much in the posts about working the spine to correct a
problem at the edge. I have a Wade Butcher that Lynn restored the edge
on and when I compared in to the Filarmonica the edge on the Wade was
much shallower with more edge showing. The Wade is very old so I
suppose it has been sharpened many times. This angle worked so well I
decided to bring that angle to the Filarmonica. I very carefully
knocked the spine thickness down a hair with a chainsaw file to get
more edge. Then, I would take a few swipes on the stone to check for
deviations in the edge and so on until everything was just right under
the magnifier. Then I sharpened it up. This worked wonderfully and I
am very happy with the results ten shaves later. It was a tad scary
taking a file to my first brand new blade but it all polished up real
nice in the end. There was a bit of a bulge in the middle of the spine
that was throwing things off at the edge. I wonder if there is a range
of spine to edge ratios that work better with different metals. Has
anyone else ever gone to such measures to get that edge just right or
have I gone a bit to far?