G'day All,
Have been trying to find an opinion on a new straight razor I received as a gift today, but am not having much luck....
I received a Dovo Barbarossa 10580086 and am excited and happy about it, I've never owned or used a straight razor before.
Having said that, I've noticed a few manufacturing issues, and I'm not really sure if this is just par for the course, or out of line. I wouldn't expect to see the same types of quality issues on a similarly priced folding knife, but I am really unsure if I'm making a big fuss. I've sent an email to Dovo to ask their opinion but don't want to rely solely on their assessment.
You can see the hollow grind on the left is much higher and deeper than on the right. As I understand it, this is going to give each side a different final bevel angle. This is made worse by the fact that the actual cutting edge is not centred within the steel stock.
From the rear of the blade, you can see the same asymmetry but it is also clear that what remains of the flat grinds are not the same angle.
This is much harder to see in the photo (but apparent in person,) the actual cutting edge is running on an angle. When compared to the line of the tang/handle or the scales, in both cases the cutting edge is not parallel.
Again, hard to see in the photo - but relative to the tang/steel stock the actual cutting edge leans over to one side - i.e. is out of plumb.
I understand that there is always going to be a bit of inconsistency with a grind, and that the quenching process is going to effectively make it impossible to get a perfectly straight edge in every plane. I am also acutely aware that I have no idea what I am talking about and no experience with this industry or manufacturing process, but my suspicion is:
The blade stock is initially rough cut to form the handle and blade shape (no problems here.)
The stock is then flat ground to remove the bulk of the material (I think my blade was done in the middle of Oktoberfest, by a very hungover German.)
A large lot of these flat ground blades are then heat treated, quenched and tempered. (I suspect this was done without checking the flat-grind.)
After finishing the heat treat, the hollow grind is cut in using a water wheel or similar.
At this point in the process it looks like someone at Dovo has realised they have a batch of knives that were incompetently ground and instead of cutting their losses and getting the scrap price, they've tried to recover the work so as not to lose the sunk cost of steel and labour. This has resulted in a very aggressive and weird hollow-grind with crap geometry.
Of course I freely admit, I have no idea what I'm talking about, this is just a hypothetical.
Can anyone tell me if I'm off base here? Should this be going straight back to the retailer, or am I being a bit too pedantic? I'm sure I'll still be able to get a fine working edge out of it, and practically it will be a perfectly useful tool. But I can't help but feel QA has dropped the ball a bit here and I haven't received exactly what was paid for.
Cheers guys.
Have been trying to find an opinion on a new straight razor I received as a gift today, but am not having much luck....
I received a Dovo Barbarossa 10580086 and am excited and happy about it, I've never owned or used a straight razor before.
Having said that, I've noticed a few manufacturing issues, and I'm not really sure if this is just par for the course, or out of line. I wouldn't expect to see the same types of quality issues on a similarly priced folding knife, but I am really unsure if I'm making a big fuss. I've sent an email to Dovo to ask their opinion but don't want to rely solely on their assessment.
You can see the hollow grind on the left is much higher and deeper than on the right. As I understand it, this is going to give each side a different final bevel angle. This is made worse by the fact that the actual cutting edge is not centred within the steel stock.
From the rear of the blade, you can see the same asymmetry but it is also clear that what remains of the flat grinds are not the same angle.
This is much harder to see in the photo (but apparent in person,) the actual cutting edge is running on an angle. When compared to the line of the tang/handle or the scales, in both cases the cutting edge is not parallel.
Again, hard to see in the photo - but relative to the tang/steel stock the actual cutting edge leans over to one side - i.e. is out of plumb.
I understand that there is always going to be a bit of inconsistency with a grind, and that the quenching process is going to effectively make it impossible to get a perfectly straight edge in every plane. I am also acutely aware that I have no idea what I am talking about and no experience with this industry or manufacturing process, but my suspicion is:
The blade stock is initially rough cut to form the handle and blade shape (no problems here.)
The stock is then flat ground to remove the bulk of the material (I think my blade was done in the middle of Oktoberfest, by a very hungover German.)
A large lot of these flat ground blades are then heat treated, quenched and tempered. (I suspect this was done without checking the flat-grind.)
After finishing the heat treat, the hollow grind is cut in using a water wheel or similar.
At this point in the process it looks like someone at Dovo has realised they have a batch of knives that were incompetently ground and instead of cutting their losses and getting the scrap price, they've tried to recover the work so as not to lose the sunk cost of steel and labour. This has resulted in a very aggressive and weird hollow-grind with crap geometry.
Of course I freely admit, I have no idea what I'm talking about, this is just a hypothetical.
Can anyone tell me if I'm off base here? Should this be going straight back to the retailer, or am I being a bit too pedantic? I'm sure I'll still be able to get a fine working edge out of it, and practically it will be a perfectly useful tool. But I can't help but feel QA has dropped the ball a bit here and I haven't received exactly what was paid for.
Cheers guys.