I am pretty pleased with this razor. I did a little research before buying and heard Gold Dollars were generally pretty good, but that the quality control could get away from them, so I was prepared to do some fixing up. I was pretty confident that as long as it was warped or twisted I could grind any imperfection that showed up out, so for $11 it seemed like I could try my luck. I couldn't find the model number on this one anywhere, but I believe I read somewhere that it is an 81. On Amazon it is simply listed as "Straight Razor Without Stabilizer".
Here's how it looked fresh from the factory. Not terrible, but a bit of a "smile". In the knife word I'd call that a "belly", but I'm trying to adopt SR terminology. What really bugged me though was the little imperfection near the heel. I see this on knives a lot, usually happens on a belt grinder when someone holds the blade over the edge of the belt, and the slack in the belt kind of rolls down a little bit, digging into the blade and creating that little hump. I've ground a lot of these out of knives, so I knew there would be some elbow grease involved to get it out, but I had some free time so no big deal.
Took a few hours on the 1K to get to this point. I use very light pressure when re-profiling blades in general, but knew it was extra important to do so with this blade since it is so thin. Plus, it seems surprisingly hard, so I was worried it would be pretty brittle and chip. I have heard they're supposed to be only 57 HRC, but I have ground a lot of knives rated for that, and it seemed a bit harder. It probably would have went faster if I'd used the 220 side of my Norton 220/1K, but I wasn't sure how appropriate that would be for a straight razor since it can be quite aggressive. I would have liked to get the bevel a little more even towards the tip, but I definitely wasn't trying to go for perfect on an $11 razor. Just got it to the point where I could rest it on a hone and have the whole edge make contact heel-to-tip without needing to "roll" it to make contact.
One thing the observant will notice, is that the area of the spine that sits on the hone to guide the angle is wider near the heel than at the tip. (Is there a term for this area?) This is because when it came from the factory, the spine was thicker at the heel than at the tip. Though it looks uneven on the facial side now, this is because the spine was unevenly thick, which means the edge angle was too. It's not pleasing aesthetically like this, but is more sound functionally. Now the spine thickness where it meets the hone is a uniform .225" +/- .005" all the way through. From the high point of that contact area, to the edge of the blade, is about .613", and so with a little trig ( asin((.225/2)/.613) * (180/pi) * 2 ) I calculate the angle to be about 21 degrees inclusive.
I bought a very cheap 3k/8k hone off Amazon to finish on, and it was kind of a disappointment honestly. I don't think the grit sizes were accurate. Nevertheless, it still left it at a level to get a reasonable sheen off of a chromium-oxide loaded strop, finished on plain kangaroo hide. More importantly, gives a decent and comfortable shave. Better than the disposable Bics I've been buying at least. Not a high bar I know, but in other terms, it passes the HHT. Room for improvement, but totally adequate for the meantime.
The only little nagging problem that's left which I can't fix is the handle. For some reason, it occasionally has the tendency to close with the blade off-center. At one point I actually ended up cutting into the cheap acrylic handles because of this, giving me some little micro-chips for my OCD to cope with. I'm not going to bother to hone them out until I get a better finishing hone and it actually needs it though. Still, kind of annoyed that I will now have to be very careful opening/closing it to make sure that the blade isn't so offset that it rubs up against the inside of the handle, or worse, closes on it. It's a small little nitpick, and for $11 I am just grateful I lucked out to get one straight enough to turn into a functional shaver.
So I wouldn't really call this a review, since I have no frame of reference of quality since this is the first and only straight razor I have had, but I am quite pleased with it despite the work I had to put in. I enjoy working on all edged tools, so this was a fun little learning experience, and I think I will probably end up trying to find a vintage to restore off of eBay or something next. Before that though, I am going to buy some better water stones for honing and finishing it (and my other edged tools) on. I've got my eye on the Shapton Pro 5k and 12k.
Well anyway, don't want to blather on, I just wanted to share another Gold Dollar experience.
Here's how it looked fresh from the factory. Not terrible, but a bit of a "smile". In the knife word I'd call that a "belly", but I'm trying to adopt SR terminology. What really bugged me though was the little imperfection near the heel. I see this on knives a lot, usually happens on a belt grinder when someone holds the blade over the edge of the belt, and the slack in the belt kind of rolls down a little bit, digging into the blade and creating that little hump. I've ground a lot of these out of knives, so I knew there would be some elbow grease involved to get it out, but I had some free time so no big deal.
Took a few hours on the 1K to get to this point. I use very light pressure when re-profiling blades in general, but knew it was extra important to do so with this blade since it is so thin. Plus, it seems surprisingly hard, so I was worried it would be pretty brittle and chip. I have heard they're supposed to be only 57 HRC, but I have ground a lot of knives rated for that, and it seemed a bit harder. It probably would have went faster if I'd used the 220 side of my Norton 220/1K, but I wasn't sure how appropriate that would be for a straight razor since it can be quite aggressive. I would have liked to get the bevel a little more even towards the tip, but I definitely wasn't trying to go for perfect on an $11 razor. Just got it to the point where I could rest it on a hone and have the whole edge make contact heel-to-tip without needing to "roll" it to make contact.
One thing the observant will notice, is that the area of the spine that sits on the hone to guide the angle is wider near the heel than at the tip. (Is there a term for this area?) This is because when it came from the factory, the spine was thicker at the heel than at the tip. Though it looks uneven on the facial side now, this is because the spine was unevenly thick, which means the edge angle was too. It's not pleasing aesthetically like this, but is more sound functionally. Now the spine thickness where it meets the hone is a uniform .225" +/- .005" all the way through. From the high point of that contact area, to the edge of the blade, is about .613", and so with a little trig ( asin((.225/2)/.613) * (180/pi) * 2 ) I calculate the angle to be about 21 degrees inclusive.
I bought a very cheap 3k/8k hone off Amazon to finish on, and it was kind of a disappointment honestly. I don't think the grit sizes were accurate. Nevertheless, it still left it at a level to get a reasonable sheen off of a chromium-oxide loaded strop, finished on plain kangaroo hide. More importantly, gives a decent and comfortable shave. Better than the disposable Bics I've been buying at least. Not a high bar I know, but in other terms, it passes the HHT. Room for improvement, but totally adequate for the meantime.
The only little nagging problem that's left which I can't fix is the handle. For some reason, it occasionally has the tendency to close with the blade off-center. At one point I actually ended up cutting into the cheap acrylic handles because of this, giving me some little micro-chips for my OCD to cope with. I'm not going to bother to hone them out until I get a better finishing hone and it actually needs it though. Still, kind of annoyed that I will now have to be very careful opening/closing it to make sure that the blade isn't so offset that it rubs up against the inside of the handle, or worse, closes on it. It's a small little nitpick, and for $11 I am just grateful I lucked out to get one straight enough to turn into a functional shaver.
So I wouldn't really call this a review, since I have no frame of reference of quality since this is the first and only straight razor I have had, but I am quite pleased with it despite the work I had to put in. I enjoy working on all edged tools, so this was a fun little learning experience, and I think I will probably end up trying to find a vintage to restore off of eBay or something next. Before that though, I am going to buy some better water stones for honing and finishing it (and my other edged tools) on. I've got my eye on the Shapton Pro 5k and 12k.
Well anyway, don't want to blather on, I just wanted to share another Gold Dollar experience.
