Gold Dollar actually turned out… great.

[sd_baker]

I just rehoned and shaved with the same razor.
I used a relative soft suita to create some serrations at the edge.

Then I just did some light work on a lv 4.5 wakasa jnat just to smooth out the edge a little.

Can you post a zoomed out picture of both the faces of the razor? I'm curious how much metal was removed.

 

[JPO]

Can you post a zoomed out picture of both the faces of the razor? I'm curious how much metal was removed.

These are test razors that have been grinded into a razor shape. They have also been honed allot of times.
I am not sure what a zoomed out photo will tell you.

 

[sd_baker]

These are test razors that have been grinded into a razor shape. They have also been honed allot of times.
I am not sure what a zoomed out photo will tell you.

I recently saw a video of the convex hone guy complaining about extremely bad steel quality (crumbling while shaving) and Froggy Shave did a similar video, and it reminded me of your post.

I also just honed a fresh GD100 that shaves fine, like all my other GDs. i wondered if it's due to burned steel. We know GDs are finished on a high powered grinder of some sort. Typically more expensive razors get attention on some slow circular stones or manually. The heat generated by grinder probably causes the steel at the apex to detemper. It's known that even for some expensive knives, you have to sharpen 4 or 5 times OOTB to get into the fresh good steel.

When I hone a new GD, I put significant spine wear on and remove a good amount of steel at the edge.

 

[JPO]

The heat generated by grinder probably causes the steel at the apex to detemper. It's known that even for some expensive knives, you have to sharpen 4 or 5 times OOTB to get into the fresh good steel.

Yes, in most cases you need to remove enough steel to get past compromised steel.
Almost all my new production razors have had this issue to some extent, even expensive custom razors.
The problem with gold dollar razors is that you don't know how deep this goes, and if it's going to be worth the effort.

Mr also used a coarse diamond plate that has some of the same effects. Strain hardening results in more brittle steel being created deeper then the visible striations.
Some steel types, like old Sheffield steel can be more forgiving.
In my opinion, if you are working with steel of poor quality you need to use the least aggressive abrasive you can use, and smaller grit jumps, or more time at each grit to make sure you are working with good steel.

 

[psfred]

I would think the least aggressive abrasives and lowest possible pressure would apply to all razors -- we require a very sharp narrow apex bevel in order to cut hair without pulling and this produces significant localized sideways pressure on the apex and bevel. Any defects/microcracks/scratches will be more prone to causing chips that clean, polished steel.

I think you can assume that any new razor has less than perfect steel at the edge, no matter how it's been ground or honed. This is true of knives as well, it's a well known issue with newly made knives no matter how well heat treated. It is almost impossible to get the narrow edge at exactly the same temper and hardness of the rest of the blade. Only after a few sharpenings is a new knife gonna show it's best, I's assume the same for razors.

Old carbon steel razors will have some oxidation issues at the edge too, not a problem with newly made ones.