Intentionally Convex Coticule ?

[tanvir]

So those are some of my thoughts, any others?

I don't have the stats but are there enough straight razor users buying European razors to support 20-25 grinders full time plus assorted staff to make a thriving corporation? Also needed are equipment makers making dedicated machinery for razors, like opposing wheels hollow grinders and the like.

What real advancement comes after Parker 51 or Sheaffer Snorkel. Perhaps Pilot vanishing point may be an innovation but does not have the writing capability of Parker 51 with its collector.

I truly believe the golden era of straight razors has passed and it is not coming back.

 

[Steve56]

I don't have the stats but are there enough straight razor users buying European razors to support 20-25 grinders full time plus assorted staff to make a thriving corporation? Also needed are equipment makers making dedicated machinery for razors, like opposing wheels hollow grinders and the like.

What real advancement comes after Parker 51 or Sheaffer Snorkel. Perhaps Pilot vanishing point may be an innovation but does not have the writing capability of Parker 51 with its collector.

I truly believe the golden era of straight razors has passed and it is not coming back.

If I were betting, I would bet that you are right on straight razor manufacturers. But that does not mean that it has to be.

 

[silverlifter]

What real advancement comes after Parker 51 or Sheaffer Snorkel.

Conid's bulkfiller. Have you seen how much they are selling for?

 

[Christian1212]

Well I have learned 2 things from this thread.
1. Curved honing can be fun but probably won't be worth the time and effort (for me). But I can still see myself turning my naniwa stones curved instead of selling them one day.
2. My hatred as a surveyor for engineers happens in shaving forums now as well as meetings discussing plans (joking).

 

[JPO]

This is a tangential thought, but I do not want to start another thread that mods have to babysit 24/7. I assume that they are monitoring this one continuously already so no more mod time is needed.

Part of the problem is the defense of European razor makers, no matter what they make, and who are facing difficult times, low demand, and not enough volume to keep prices low, and allow a workforce to gain skill over time, regardless of product quality.

Florida man said that he thought that in 10 years European razor makers would be gone, and I understand his comment, but I would add a modification. In 10 years European razor makers will be gone IF THEY CONTINUE TO MAKE THE SAME PRODUCT.

We are a community of razor buyers, honers, collectors, and users. Most of us have more razors that we will ever use up, and we are not stopping buying them, lol. So let’s help the European razor makers. What do they need to do to get us to buy their razors?

Here are some thoughts.

- Take a page from Steve Jobs’ (Apple) strategy. Make a luxury product. If it’s expensive, people will still buy it. A nice iPhone will go $1,500. People, and a lot of them, will pay that for the RIGHT razor - Mint Iwasaki tamahagane westerns will sell for $3k for the right razor and they don’t hang around long. A MK 34 or MK 134 wull bring well over $1k, and a NOS MK 34 in box wouldn’t surprise me to sell for over $2k. There is collector’s value in these but I think most razor fans would pay half that for a similar currently made razor, and they do for customs all the time - so the EU makers need to make customs more or less. I would buy them, and probably several of them. Namiki made a set of 6 maki-e urushi fountain pens that sold for about $36k, and sell they did. Individual special editions over $10k. @nemo probably knows more about these. They also make nice pens for a few a few bucks.

Also remember that Apple was once in maybe a worse situation than the EU razor makers at the time of Jobs return, with Michael Dell advising that they should just sell off the assets, distribute to the stockholders, and go out of business. But they didn’t, and they are the most valuable company in the world depending on what time you check. Jobs looked at the catalogue and said famously, ‘These products have no sex.’ I could say the same for TI and Dovo. And I wish them success.

- Ditch the wooden popsicle stick scales and spacers. Make proper scales with flexible materials to accommodate a proper wedge and a tapered tang. The tapered tang and the wedge make for a lighter and more elegant razor. No one expects ivory or tortoise, but there are many very nice plastic and composite materials, Kirinite, Inlace, and horn.

- Forget the gold. It costs more, wears off, looks bad when it does, and doesn’t contribute anything. French and German makers liked fancy gold wash blade decoration but no one else in the world did except Filarmonica.

- Make real hollow ground razors, as hollow as the vintage TI, Swedish, and Solingen razors. Make other grinds too.

- Throw out wavy bevels, overgrinds, twisted, bent, etc blanks and razors - they’re driving you out of business, not price. People will pay more if they know the grind is good. No one would buy other products with equivalent defects. Dented washer, noisy fridge, new car leaking oil, you get the idea. No one will pay much until these problem razors aren’t going out the door.

- Make an entry product (Apple does this too, now). A good example is the TI Basic Black series. Plain blades, simple black plastic scales at a great price. And if you luck into a well ground one, you can have custom scales put on it and come out on this product.

So those are some of my thoughts, any others?

This is what Trevor at WoolfBlades told me yesterday.
So, all razor makers are not going out of business.

 

[silverlifter]

Yes, watching Ulrik's waiting time continue to extend over the last couple of years has been oddly reassuring.

 

[JPO]

So, what does the future of straight razor shaving look like? That could be an interesting thread.
In my opinion razor should come shave ready, and there should be an easy way for people to maintain their razors.
Shave ready means something different for different people.

The last razor i received (a Woolfblades razor) come with a smooth but convex pasted edge. He told me that he is getting good feedback from his customers. This type of edge could probably be maintained for a really long time using pasted strops and leather. The bevel angle is also really acute. So, the pasted strop does not create the same issues as a more obtuse bevel angle would.
I had to rehone the razor, but that does not mean his customers were wrong. My experience does not devalue others experiences.
Better for me does not mean it's objectively better.

 

[ZeelandsRoem]

Steve, I agree with many of your points, but I have some things to add:

Make a luxury product. If it’s expensive, people will still buy it.

I do understand this point, but we also need to look from manufacturer's perspective: most popular models from Boker, Dovo and TI are the cheapest ones, not the expensive models. I think that's because those who want to buy their first straight razor will go for the cheapest one before willing to spend more money on something else. Cheaper products will always sell better as many won't have a high budget and manufacturers also need to maintain a certain volume of sales to keep the manufacturing busy when they don't sell expensive razors.

What I would to see is this: cheap razors for beginners with a lot of focus on grind and edge sharpness quality, while expensive ones focused on grind quality and offer the option to sell the razor without a factory edge. New comers need to get a truly shave ready razor (but then how we really define a shave ready razor?), whereas experienced buyers will probably put their own edge anyway, so grind and manufacturing quality matters more.

- Ditch the wooden popsicle stick scales and spacers. Make proper scales with flexible materials to accommodate a proper wedge and a tapered tang. The tapered tang and the wedge make for a lighter and more elegant razor. No one expects ivory or tortoise, but there are many very nice plastic and composite materials, Kirinite, Inlace, and horn.

As far as I am aware, not many come with wooden scales. What I absolutely agree with is the lack of wedge and tapered tang, sometimes paired with scales which are simply too thick to be comfortable. I don't mind plastic scales, I have plenty of them and are okay (robust, can look decent) but often they are just too thick. TI can do a fairly good job with some designs (priced accordingly), but they are still too thick. Boker also has okay-ish scales, but it drives me nuts when I pay for a beautiful horn and the spacer (not wedge) is plastic. TI offers MOP as well from time to time, problem is the retailers do not offer this option in their catalogues.

Buffalo bone/horn is pretty cheap. I just asked my local buffalo farmer/supplier and he told me he's actually throwing most of them away because almost no one is interested in them. With only one supplier they could solve this issue.

- Forget the gold. It costs more, wears off, looks bad when it does, and doesn’t contribute anything. French and German makers liked fancy gold wash blade decoration but no one else in the world did except Filarmonica.

Gold wash does appeal to beginners. What I would like here is proper (deep, crisp) etching like they used to do some time ago. I dislike laser etching, but chemical etching I believe it is still possible and should not be expensive.

- Make real hollow ground razors, as hollow as the vintage TI, Swedish, and Solingen razors. Make other grinds too.

Boker still does hollow ground. What those 3x manufacturers (Boker, TI and Dovo) don't is offer the option to select the grind. Ugh, I would definitely throw money left and right if they did offer the possibility and probably they would also have less grinding issues as well.

- Throw out wavy bevels, overgrinds, twisted, bent, etc blanks and razors - they’re driving you out of business, not price. People will pay more if they know the grind is good. No one would buy other products with equivalent defects. No one will pay much until these problem razors aren’t going out the door.

I fully agree! They loose customers rather quickly. Most I believe will buy once and once only if they receive a razor which is warped more than a wooden stick which fell off the tree.

- Make an entry product (Apple does this too, now). A good example is the TI Basic Black series. Plain blades, simple black plastic scales at a great price. And if you luck into a well ground one, you can have custom scales put on it and come out on this product.

They still do, don't they? All 3 big manufacturers still have them in their offerings. But then, as as I said above, make sure they are actually shave ready and the grind is good so if they want to hone them they can actually do that instead of getting frustrated and go back to DE or carts.

- Ship them actually shave ready. Care enough to ensure that new users can confidently put down their coin knowing that they'll unwrap a blade that will require nothing more than a lather to get going. Every. Single. Time.

Absolutely on point here! I think we can all agree with this. I only have two points to add:
- What does shave ready actually means? My last TI was definitely super sharp and cutting effortlessly, but it was a harsh, synthetic edge. I inspected that edge and was definitely stropped on high grit synth (most likely diamond paste). Is this really shave ready? Well, technically it shaves, it cuts well, but it is not comfortable, so for me, this is not shave ready. Someone will say a shave ready edge is a good coti edge, others will say an Ark edge, there are so many options and it is hard to please everyone. In my opinion, and I am trying to keep in mind both sides, I would say it must be synth (cheap and fast for the manufacturer) but done well, so it is also pleasing a beginner. Probably many will disagree with me, and I can totally understand that.
- Offer the option to sell the razor without a factory edge.

To be honest, I would see the possibility that some people buy cheap razors which are having a decent/good factory edge, use it as long as they can and when it's time to get a new edge on it, just buy another razor. I know plenty of busy people which have the means to do this and they will do it if they have the option. And this would be great for the manufacturers.

And one last thing here, even Ulrik's edges lack, in my opinion, based on the 5+ new razors from him. The last two were tugging and not cutting well, whereas the ones from RigaRazor (5+ razors as well) were the only ones with good edges (or at least good for a synth edge). Now, what is interesting, Koraat sells well, whereas RigaRazors sit on stock for a long time. This could be from a multitude of reasons though (not quality because they excel in this department, even more so than Koraat!), but clearly for some a good edge does not matter.

Thank you, and I agree that it should be an option, and will go you one better - they need to have regional (country) assets that can maintain/hone their razors. Dovo already does this to some extent in the US I think.

Very good point. Will be expensive, complex (from a management point of view), but it would be ideal to maintain a base of users. Not sure if it would be feasible though, unfortunately.


I hope my ideas make some sense and are not all over the place. I wrote this message in between doing other things got distracted all the time.

Cheers everyone, this is an interesting topic.

 

[MileMarker60]

Here are some thoughts.

- Take a page from Steve Jobs’ (Apple) strategy. Make a luxury product. If it’s expensive, people will still buy it. A nice iPhone will go $1,500. People, and a lot of them, will pay that for the RIGHT razor - Mint Iwasaki tamahagane westerns will sell for $3k for the right razor and they don’t hang around long. A MK 34 or MK 134 wull bring well over $1k, and a NOS MK 34 in box wouldn’t surprise me to sell for over $2k. There is collector’s value in these but I think most razor fans would pay half that for a similar currently made razor, and they do for customs all the time - so the EU makers need to make customs more or less. I would buy them, and probably several of them. Namiki made a set of 6 maki-e urushi fountain pens that sold for about $36k, and sell they did. Individual special editions over $10k. @nemo probably knows more about these. They also make nice pens for a few a few bucks.
.....

Actually I think Boker (maybe?).. held a "contest" that allowed makers/users to send in designs to be picked as a new line of production razor a few years back. I don't know what came of it.

IMHO EU producers aren't set up to do customs.
At least in a way that I would consider it a "custom".
Custom to them would come down to scales, maybe steel selection and minor razor changes but the basic razors shape and grind aren't really going to change. The razor shape would be limited to the ability to produce razor blanks and the ability to grind it on the existing machines.

 

[Darth Scandalous]

I understand why they do this, but can you imagine any premium woodworking or knife makers that void the warranty if you sharpen their products?

Thinking historically, not all razors were advertised as being shave-ready. They used different terminology, of course. But the few warranty sheets I've seen that did claim the razor was ready to shave out of the box, made it clear that sharpening would void the warranty.

I do think, if that's the way you want to do business, it would behoove you to actually make your razors shave.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

A few years ago, I was hired by a large Shaving vendor to critique and hone a custom razor made by a well known knife maker from a modern steel.

They were going to have the razors manufactured by a large well established European razor maker.

The razor was very nice, large blade, thin G10 scales, modern super hard steel, (had to cut bevels with diamonds, razor had no bevels, but was well ground and dead straight) once honed took a screaming edge on a variety of stones.

I honed that razor and shave it daily for a month on variety of stones, shaved a dream on film and the usual suspects, natural stones. The razor was to sell in the 5-$800 range with the vendors stamp. They were intended to ship, shave ready.

That razor was never made, too bad it was a looker and super shaver.

 

[silverlifter]

Is this really shave ready? Well, technically it shaves, it cuts well, but it is not comfortable, so for me, this is not shave ready

I think for most everyone in this thread, the definition of "shave ready" would vary slightly. But, for someone new to straights, the rquired minimum that we would demand of a razor is the first clauses of your sentence, "it shaves, it cuts well". Comfort will always be more of a subjective designation, but no-one should expect tugging, stalling or a blade that simply won't remove facial hair.

 

[Steve56]

I think for most everyone in this thread, the definition of "shave ready" would vary slightly. But, for someone new to straights, the rquired minimum that we would demand of a razor is the first clauses of your sentence, "it shaves, it cuts well". Comfort will always be more of a subjective designation, but no-one should expect tugging, stalling or a blade that simply won't remove facial hair.

If you send out a razor to a new SR razor, it should not pull, tug, or hurt when you shave. If it does the vendor may have made their last sale.

 

[Eshebert]

We’re engineers John, of course we are obsessed.

OK. But that is only OK to say if you are an engineer. We are nuts.

With over 30 years of operational experience making engineers dreams a come to true. I can agree with your overall self assessment.

 

[Wid]

With over 30 years of operational experience making engineers dreams a come to true. I can agree with your overall self assessment.

All you have to do is open the hood of a new vehicle and one can see that lol.

 

[tanvir]

If I were betting, I would bet that you are right on straight razor manufacturers. But that does not mean that it has to be.

Come to think of it, why even have a single grinder. If there is real demand for straight razors, by now the whole thing should be automated including putting the shaving edge on the razor, just like Mach 3 or Fusion/ProGilde.

 

[Steve56]

Come to think of it, why even have a single grinder. If there is real demand for straight razors, by now the whole thing should be automated including putting the shaving edge on the razor, just like Mach 3 or Fusion/ProGilde.

It sounds good and has been discussed many times in the past, but at present, there is no machine that can autonomously grind or hone a SR like a human can. There have been some attempts at grinding, but not at honing AFAIK.

The closest ‘machine’ razor is probably a Gold Dollar, which I suspect has minimal human processing, since you can buy them in bulk for about $1.50. It is not a razor to aspire to in the West, though they do have their charms.

 

[JPO]

Ok I'll be the first to admit it's been a long time since I looked at hones ... but is this a thing now?
If so, can someone explain why?

OK. Maybe one example might help to shed some light on one particular hypothetical case where one solution might be to use convex stone(s).

Someone buys a new expensive warped 7/8 TI razor (most of these are to some extent). For some reason these have more geometry issues then some of the smaller and shorter blades from TI.
The factory edge is not what you are after. So, you need to hone it.
It's simple. You just need to adjust for all the geometry issue.
You can even use the corner of the stone, or a narrow stone. Problem solved.

Part of the problem is that when the contact between the spine and the edge is not perpendicular, the contact on the bevel plane will also vary, even if you are not flexing the grind.
On a typical 7/8 razor, if the contact point between the edge and the spine offsets/skews just 30 deg, there will be a angle difference of 2 deg. I.e. you are lifting the apex off the stone. Getting a flat bevel starts to get quite difficult.

Solutions:
1. Correct the spine to allow the razor to sit flat on the stone.
The razor will be easy to maintain, but it will probably loose some of it's resell value. I would not buy it from you, but someone might at a discount.
This would probably take me more then an hour, depending on how bad it was.

2. Use convex stones.
It's allot easier then to navigate all the issues involved in honing this without compromising the aesthetics. The razor will look factory new, and you will probably be able to sell it.
It might not shave that much better then the corrected one.
For me this will probable take 5-10 min.

It's just a tool, so who cares. Well if i pay 400 usd for a brand new razor i do care. I can hone a gold dollar with allot bigger geometry issues on flat stones. However, there will be hone wear. In that case i don't care.

 

[Steve56]

I originally posted the image as a way to hone into a frown/overgrind without brute-force honing it out. And sometimes you can’t, if you are honing a family heirloom for someone and they don’t want the shape changed.

I’ve been accused of saying that corner honing changes the shape of the bevel, thoughI never said that, only that it was a way that everyone has to hone a frown/overgrind. Not everyone has a convex hone. But according to your diagram, they are wrong! It’s honing up on the shoulder if the bevel, just like a convex hone! The technique is basically emulating a narrow hone, which is another way to do it, but not everyone has a narrow hone or hones that they can use the sides of.

Worrying about the skew angle on a razor that’s so badly made that the hone won’t hit the apex is kind of like worrying about what flavor icing is on a cr@p cake. No matter how you do it, you just have to rub it on the rocks till the rocks hit the apex.

Another way to do it hone to a smile. gssixgun has a video here:

 

[alex1921]

Solution No.3. Stay away from modern Dovo and TI if they can't make a straight razor.
If they valued you as a customer they wouldn't be selling you crappy razors.