My friend phat and I have buddied up and have become honing partners. The approach is that we each would purchase a Gold Dollar 100, hone it, and send it to the other for shaving. Then we would provide feedback for each other regarding the resulting shave. What we have yet to decide is how many times we would send these back and fourth after honing, but when we are finished, we are each going to PIF them, me in the U.S. and phat in Canada. Below is a picture of the finished product that is now shave ready and about to ship to phat for his evaluation.
The Gold Dollar on first appearance is rather crude in the grinding, especially in the transition from the stabilizer to the tang. The stabilizer is fairly large and heavy. I am not sure if this razor would be considered a 1/2 or a 1/4 ground, but it has some heft to it. Last night I took the GD to the hones, and I started out with a Chosera 1K. My progression was Chosera 1K, Chosera 3K, Naniwa SS 8K and finish on a new Translucent Ark that I have been breaking in. This is the first razor off of this stone.
Upon starting to hone, I noticed a couple of issues with the GD that I found to be problematic. First, the razor had a significant smirk (1/2 of a smile) at the toe. Second, one side of the stabilizer protruded laterally and hit the stone when I was trying to hone the heel. I went through a series of sweeping X strokes trying to get the stone to hit the edge at the toe. During this process, the stabilizer rode up on the stone for a significant number of strokes, even though I was doing my best to avoid this. Second, no matter how much I swept my X stroke, I was not able to get a scratch pattern on the edge out to the toe. After repeated attempts I became frustrated and determined that desperate measures were call for. First, I started grinding away at the stabilizer to remove the protrusion. Second, I bread knifed the blade until it was flat almost to the toe, at least far enough that I felt I could reach it with sweeping X strokes. All in all, I have several hours on this razor on the 1K stone. I probably grinded on this thing way more than I needed to, but this is the approach that I took
I was able to get the bevel set out to the Toe using sweeping X strokes. Straight strokes did not reach the toe on either side indicating that there is either still a bit of a smirk, or the toe is thinner than the rest of the blade. My calipers are telling me that the spine at the toe end is about 5/1,000 or so thinner than at the heel, so this is probably due to some remaining smirk.
Today I did a shave test, and the GD worked really well. It is pretty much a silent whisker whacker, with no discernable audio feedback. I strong hand cheek and neck WTG, and also did a small problem area on the side of my chin ATG to test the result. The razor performed very well both WTG and ATG, so I wiped it off, set it down, and finished the shave with my other razor. After the shave I sanitized, dried, stropped 30/60 fabric/leather, oiled it, took some pictures of it, and now it is ready to ship to phat for a good tire kicking.
As an FYI, I do have a second one of these that are straight from the factory as well, so any constructive criticism as far as how to deal with the problem areas from any of you honemeisters is greatly appreciated. Once phat and I are done with these two, I will likely get out the second GD and have a go with it. This GD sure is not pretty, but it shaved very well, and will likely do so for many years to come under normal use and honing. But I surely did put some significant hone wear on this sucker.
Now it has some unique charm, it remains to be seen if it is worth having
The Gold Dollar on first appearance is rather crude in the grinding, especially in the transition from the stabilizer to the tang. The stabilizer is fairly large and heavy. I am not sure if this razor would be considered a 1/2 or a 1/4 ground, but it has some heft to it. Last night I took the GD to the hones, and I started out with a Chosera 1K. My progression was Chosera 1K, Chosera 3K, Naniwa SS 8K and finish on a new Translucent Ark that I have been breaking in. This is the first razor off of this stone.
Upon starting to hone, I noticed a couple of issues with the GD that I found to be problematic. First, the razor had a significant smirk (1/2 of a smile) at the toe. Second, one side of the stabilizer protruded laterally and hit the stone when I was trying to hone the heel. I went through a series of sweeping X strokes trying to get the stone to hit the edge at the toe. During this process, the stabilizer rode up on the stone for a significant number of strokes, even though I was doing my best to avoid this. Second, no matter how much I swept my X stroke, I was not able to get a scratch pattern on the edge out to the toe. After repeated attempts I became frustrated and determined that desperate measures were call for. First, I started grinding away at the stabilizer to remove the protrusion. Second, I bread knifed the blade until it was flat almost to the toe, at least far enough that I felt I could reach it with sweeping X strokes. All in all, I have several hours on this razor on the 1K stone. I probably grinded on this thing way more than I needed to, but this is the approach that I took
I was able to get the bevel set out to the Toe using sweeping X strokes. Straight strokes did not reach the toe on either side indicating that there is either still a bit of a smirk, or the toe is thinner than the rest of the blade. My calipers are telling me that the spine at the toe end is about 5/1,000 or so thinner than at the heel, so this is probably due to some remaining smirk.
Today I did a shave test, and the GD worked really well. It is pretty much a silent whisker whacker, with no discernable audio feedback. I strong hand cheek and neck WTG, and also did a small problem area on the side of my chin ATG to test the result. The razor performed very well both WTG and ATG, so I wiped it off, set it down, and finished the shave with my other razor. After the shave I sanitized, dried, stropped 30/60 fabric/leather, oiled it, took some pictures of it, and now it is ready to ship to phat for a good tire kicking.
As an FYI, I do have a second one of these that are straight from the factory as well, so any constructive criticism as far as how to deal with the problem areas from any of you honemeisters is greatly appreciated. Once phat and I are done with these two, I will likely get out the second GD and have a go with it. This GD sure is not pretty, but it shaved very well, and will likely do so for many years to come under normal use and honing. But I surely did put some significant hone wear on this sucker.
Now it has some unique charm, it remains to be seen if it is worth having
I have a 1K norton, and 15 um diamond film. Methinks I might make a trip to Lee Valley to find something a little coarser to attack this with initially...
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