Low cost straight - Gold Dollar 66 - 6" PRO Straight Razor Pearl Wood 7/8
- Thread starter guYom
- Start date
I would recommend going to the hobbyist section and getting a gold dollar from somebody, or looking in the BST for something cheap. Gold Dollars are great shavers.
Marc is right. When first purchased these Gold Dollars have to be prepared/honed a certain way. One needs to know what they are doing. They are not shave ready when bought new. I would have a hard time trusting one bought off the bay to be shave ready...
I bought one from a hobbyist here and only have good things to say about it. I use it almost daily.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
The PRO is probably junk though I won't step out on a limb and tell you I know it for a fact. The GD? Well, if it is properly modified and properly honed, it will be a pretty good shaver. They are particularly mild shavers due to a very fat bevel angle. (Except mine... I slim them way down.) But if a poor job was made of it, you will be severely disappointed with it. My recommendation is to only get a shave-ready GD from someone you know or someone you at least know about. Buca3152 is selling them cheap. Seraphim sometimes has one or two really nice ones for sale, and still cheap for the amount of work in them. I may be selling some in a couple of weeks but not now. Watch on BST if you want a GD ready to shave with. Buca's $22 special is gonna be hard to beat for price, though. I would say snatch one of his up while he still has some. If you want a pretty one, ask Seraphim. Later, after you are an accomplished shaver and honer, get one in the rough from the bay for less than $4 and do your own! But a "shave ready" straight of any brand, from ebay, from a total stranger, is likely to be horrible. Of course there is a chance that you might get a really good one. YMMV.
I wouldn't take the chance of buying one on the bay. But that's just me. If you want a Gold Dollar, buying it from Bucca3152 is a great idea.
I bought a gold dollar 66 from buca yesterday. Looking forward to it! First cut throat!
So you tape the edge and hone the spine down on the 220?
I noticed the one I got from Seraphim had a lot of spine wear as well. I figured it was intentional to adjust the bevel angle.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Yeah I do. I like a tighter bevel. YMMV. A fat bevel is good for learning, I think, within reason. A skinny bevel can be touchy and is prone to harshness depending on your honing style, but I really enjoy the shave when it is in the groove.
As far as grit goes, I actually start with 60 grit and lots of pressure, for reducing the spine. You don't want to diddle around with it all year. Get the grunt work done with big medicine, and leave the finesse for later. That's lots of steel to remove. I posted a chart somewhere, a quick reference for roughing in the angle. Ah here it is... http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/352234-Bevel-Chart?highlight=bevel+chart. You can see that you might have to grind away as much as .8mm from the spine, depending on your preference. On a hone or on sandpaper, that can be a lot of rubbing if you don't get serious about it. If you mean a 220 grit stone, that can work, but I actually do stuff like that on sandpaper glued to a marble tile. Sometimes I use a cheap diamond plate from Harbor Freight. They start at 150 grit.
There are a lot of reasons why a GD conversion might have a lot of spine wear. Often the spines are all whopperjawed and need a little persuasion. Sometimes you breadknife the edge and the spine no longer matches the edge. These things are really inconsistent. Like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. But you certainly don't HAVE to thin the spine. Lots of guys are shaving happily with GDs that have the original stock bevel angle. Some modders don't do anything except grind away a little bit of the heel, or grind the stabilizer down to below the honing plane. Some guys just hone and hope for the best, keep the shoulder and stabilizer well off the hone, and don't worry about heel hook. So the blade gets all kittywhompus after several years of use and honing... big deal, since you paid less than $4 for it. But just be aware that you CAN do a lot more with it, and turn it into a heirloom quality blade that can stand up to generations of use and honing, still look good, still shave great, still hone flat and easy. Do it like you feel it.
If you mod a GD and don't like the spine wear, it is a simple matter to sand the spine down round again. Just pinch the spine between folds of a small piece of sandpaper and draw the razor back and forth through it, concentrating pressure on the edges of the worn-flat strip until you have a nice round profile. You can even repeat this step after you set the bevel. I also do this with some restores, when I have to sacrifice a lot of spine to match the edge steel I had to hone away due to frowns or chips. It's not necessary, but it looks nice.
In addition to thinning the spine, I also thin the tang and fair the spine into it smoothly. I don't want a shoulder or step to interfere with honing so I want the neck of the razor to be well in between the two honing planes. Again, not really needed for what can be regarded as a disposable razor, but when I am going all out bananas on a GD, that's something I do.
Just got my 22.00 Gold Dollar from Buca today! Waiting for a couple of days growth before I shave with it (1st Straight shave)
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Good luck! Remember to stretch the skin tight, and keep the spine close to the face! Come back and tell us about it! Happy Shaves!
Thanks man! I started a shave journal so I can document the journey. I'm pretty stoked. Wish I could shave tonight but I need to let it grow a couple of days! Thanks again for all your advice Slash in the other thread, your encouragement and wisdom nudged me into the pool....
People say that Gold Dollars have improved in quality over the months, years. I got my 66 (the cheapest) one year and a half ago. It has been my scrapbook on honing stropping. I did my first decent shave two days ago. They need real re manufacturing at home. Mine had irregular bevel. I used kitchen sharpeners to set it right. The steel is so hard that only after using diamong 0.25 paste would it shave well. Solingers and the like go superb on Chromium Oxyde.
After this reflection and owing tribute to @Slash McCoy... was it worthwhile?. yes, as a hobbyist, no way as a user.. , customer....
After this reflection and owing tribute to @Slash McCoy... was it worthwhile?. yes, as a hobbyist, no way as a user.. , customer....
Please to meet you buca3152.
When I became tempted to venture into straights, my first idea was to buy a Dovo at a local store. The humble plastic scaled entry model is marketed in Spain for little less than 100 Euro (aprox. 125 $ ? ). I decided it was too much to try... also if there was a risk I could not shave on that straight out of the box. There are videos in the internet that show the final process of stamping honing and hair hanging test in Solingen before Dovos are shipped. I knew about them recently. I must reckon that I have not experienced the reference of a Dovo, so I still have a very important missing task in wet shaving.
My 5 dollar at home Gold Dollar required (de)stabilizers blowing away in the turn, serious bevel setting and incredibly brute honing. I took it as the scrapbook....
Yes, I do not own a Gold Dollar, but I have never seen a European make razor need cutting stabilizers to get a uniform bevel. The final stropping process for my Solingen Sheffield and Thiers razors (respectively Germany, England and France reputed sites of centtury old manufacturing) stops at Chromium oxyde. At that level the pulling from the Gold Dollar was unberable, only to leave an ugly stub underneath. Only after 0.25 diamond was Gold Dollar able to provide me with a decent shave. And still I find it .. hard. I expect that the steel being so hard will cause the edge to hold for a long time.... I still have to see.
Really, were it not for the fun......
When I became tempted to venture into straights, my first idea was to buy a Dovo at a local store. The humble plastic scaled entry model is marketed in Spain for little less than 100 Euro (aprox. 125 $ ? ). I decided it was too much to try... also if there was a risk I could not shave on that straight out of the box. There are videos in the internet that show the final process of stamping honing and hair hanging test in Solingen before Dovos are shipped. I knew about them recently. I must reckon that I have not experienced the reference of a Dovo, so I still have a very important missing task in wet shaving.
My 5 dollar at home Gold Dollar required (de)stabilizers blowing away in the turn, serious bevel setting and incredibly brute honing. I took it as the scrapbook....
Yes, I do not own a Gold Dollar, but I have never seen a European make razor need cutting stabilizers to get a uniform bevel. The final stropping process for my Solingen Sheffield and Thiers razors (respectively Germany, England and France reputed sites of centtury old manufacturing) stops at Chromium oxyde. At that level the pulling from the Gold Dollar was unberable, only to leave an ugly stub underneath. Only after 0.25 diamond was Gold Dollar able to provide me with a decent shave. And still I find it .. hard. I expect that the steel being so hard will cause the edge to hold for a long time.... I still have to see.
Really, were it not for the fun......
Well we all have different ideas, but i will tell you that a GD will shave as well as any other razor. Obviously not everyone wants to believe it but its true. I had the same misconception of these as many others, til I tried one and found out for myself. Hundreds if not thousands of people on this site have and I dont find anybody saying they cant shave well. But everybody should do what makes them comfortable. As Seraphim has said and he is right. Its a small piece of mass produced steel. The chinese are good at mass producing. The scales are cheapish, but 100% functional so it doesnt take away from the primary function which is to shave. You can put mammoth ivory scales on anything and it wont shave any better.
A buddy of mine bought a "shave ready" GD on ebay and it was terrible (neither of us hone) if I were to start again I would order the GD from Buca instead of my Dovo best
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Unfortunately, "shave-ready" is the new buzz word on the bay for know-nothing or ripoff razor vendors. 9 out of 10 "shave-ready" razors on ebay probably are NOT. A razor presented as shave-ready that is not nice and sharp should be reported and the vendor should be required to pay postage and give a full refund. I hate LIARS and THIEVES on ebay. Or anywhere.
