I simply refuse to part with any SRs, except as gifts. That may have to change.
Picking a modern SR or two
- Thread starter Medivh
- Start date
I simply refuse to part with any SRs, except as gifts. That may have to change.
That’s what I’ve been doing - giving them away to friends who try to start shaving with RSO’s. Just can’t let that happen. Probably should provide a .1u balsa strop so they can keep the razors pristine edge and save on postage.
Do you still have the Japanese razor? That one was really choice.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
I agree on the La Forme. Those scales are absolutely hideous. That's a good price on the Carre. They also have the Simpson Duke II in Best for a good price if you like big brand brushes. Their 5/8 Bergischer Lowe is steeply discounted too, but still too rich for my blood.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
They will still have some next month or next year. Don't get in too big a hurry until you got an idea of what grind, shape, size, etc you like. Save your money. Tomorrow you might see something that you just can't live without.
Revisor site has a lot of cool razors. I love visiting their site every couple of months. I have bought from them, and they are not always the easiest people to deal with, but they will do you right. They just sometimes don't seem to be really eager to make a sale.
I’ve had good results with 30u film for bevel setting so far but it’s effectiveness wears pretty quickly. All except one of my razors are spot on now so I don’t need to set bevels often anyway. I have a new Boker Edelweiss that came with a very good factory edge - felt like 12k but a balsa progression hasn’t got it to my liking so I believe the spine may have been elevated when honed so I will eventually have to reset the bevel but it will likely be a quicky.
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- #47
They just send me an invoice payment on my email, but the strange thing is that I don't see anything on my Paypal account. Should I just send them the money with the ''send payment to'' option, or do something else? I don't think they would just take my money without sending me anything, but who knows?
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
You mean Revisor, right? As I recall, and it has been a while since I bought from them, they don't directly debit your paypal. Send them payment and they ship. Don't worry. Their customer interface isn't very polished but they are reputable and they won't rip you off.
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- #49
Btw, this is the second one that i've picked. I see that they also have extra hollow ground razors and I might grab one in the future just to see how they perform. I have a really tough beard and I hope the full hollow blade perform well for me and not bounce around. I've heard great things about the J.A. Henckels and only time will tell if I can appreciate them.
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- #51
I have two or three Henckels and they are excellent razors and take a very good edge.
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- #53
I felt like today is the day that I will start my honing journey and the Gold Dollar 66 is going to do just fine as my first test subject. How can I know when is time to move on a higher grit? I guess I have to do lots of laps on first first two grits and not as many later on. Since I don't have diamond paste, I might use my jnat super-finish instead and hopefully I won't destroy the Gold Dollar or anything else.
According to the grit chart from the seller, the ones that I have are 1500, 4000 and 6000 and I think the grit chart is right, since the 1500 feels coarser than every other film in the package and the brown and blue also feel coarse, but not as much.
According to the grit chart from the seller, the ones that I have are 1500, 4000 and 6000 and I think the grit chart is right, since the 1500 feels coarser than every other film in the package and the brown and blue also feel coarse, but not as much.
Brian Brown or Ralf Aust? Both superb choices. Brian has been off the radar for a while and it may seem he is not making a lot of product. It’s surely a good idea to call and see.
Herr Aust features a great razor at a reasonable price with speedy delivery. Decisions, decisions……
Congratulations! And yes, the GD66 almost a good test subject. The "almost" is because they sometimes are ground wrong, and if you get one of those, you will be in for a world of frustration.
Leaving that aside, you have asked a very important question: How can I know when it is time to move on to a higher grit?
This is something I've been trying to perfect for a while. The main, indispensable answer is: when you have a good apex all the way along the blade. You can watch Doc226 videos and see him cut into a cherry tomato at various points along the blade to verify this. A pickle would probably also work, and is less perishable.
While you can't dispense with the apex cutting test, you can get hints. I have a microscope, and I have spent a lot of time trying to answer the question: what signals can I get when honing, that would tell me when the bevel would look good under the microscope. It turned out that the answer was: when the razor seems to glide over the stone with no resistance. There are usually three phases: one where it feels rough, one where it feels as though the hone is cutting perfectly, and then, finally, sometimes much later than one would hope, especially on the bevel-setter, when it just glides. When you hit that, try the cherry tomato.
You may find that there is still a part of the edge that isn't ready. That might just be that you can have perfectly smooth bevels on both sides without them meeting in a proper apex. But it can also be because you are fooling yourself. At this point in my honing journey, that is probably the thing that I am most trying to fix. Oh, that seemed wrong a few strokes ago, but it's smooth now. No. Check it again, or it will be plaguing you on the higher-grit stones, where it is much harder, or basically impossible to fix.
Get things unbearably perfect on the bevel setter before moving on. If you do this, the subsequent grits should be straightforward.
- Thread starter
- #56
I will wait for a few more days for my beard to grow a bit more and then I will try to shave with the Gold Dollar. I also stopped the razor on both sides of my inexpensive strop instead of the good one made by Tony Miller and the razor cuts the hair of my arms almost effortlessly and now one third of my hairy arm is shaved 
.
The 1500 grit film looks very bad and i'm not sure I can use it again and there's also a slight cut on it from the shoulder of the razor. The other two grits look fine.
On the third picture you might not be able to see, but the shoulder on that and on the other side got honed as well. I suspect the reason for that is because the shoulders on some/all Gold Dollars 66 are not precisely polished or cut and there's a bit of steel that must be removed in order to be honed properly. I also think that the blade is slightly warped due to the fact that when I place the razor on the lapping plate, the edge close to the shoulder stays slightly in above the rest of the blade, but I guess that can be expected as well.
Since this is going to be my practice razor that doesn't bother me as much as long as I get what I want from it which is to learn how to properly hone a razor from setting the bevel to give it a decent finish.
.The 1500 grit film looks very bad and i'm not sure I can use it again and there's also a slight cut on it from the shoulder of the razor. The other two grits look fine.
On the third picture you might not be able to see, but the shoulder on that and on the other side got honed as well. I suspect the reason for that is because the shoulders on some/all Gold Dollars 66 are not precisely polished or cut and there's a bit of steel that must be removed in order to be honed properly. I also think that the blade is slightly warped due to the fact that when I place the razor on the lapping plate, the edge close to the shoulder stays slightly in above the rest of the blade, but I guess that can be expected as well.
Since this is going to be my practice razor that doesn't bother me as much as long as I get what I want from it which is to learn how to properly hone a razor from setting the bevel to give it a decent finish.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
I will wait for a few more days for my beard to grow a bit more and then I will try to shave with the Gold Dollar. I also stopped the razor on both sides of my inexpensive strop instead of the good one made by Tony Miller and the razor cuts the hair of my arms almost effortlessly and now one third of my hairy arm is shaved
The 1500 grit film looks very bad and i'm not sure I can use it again and there's also a slight cut on it from the shoulder of the razor. The other two grits look fine.
On the third picture you might not be able to see, but the shoulder on that and on the other side got honed as well. I suspect the reason for that is because the shoulders on some/all Gold Dollars 66 are not precisely polished or cut and there's a bit of steel that must be removed in order to be honed properly. I also think that the blade is slightly warped due to the fact that when I place the razor on the lapping plate, the edge close to the shoulder stays slightly in above the rest of the blade, but I guess that can be expected as well.
Since this is going to be my practice razor that doesn't bother me as much as long as I get what I want from it which is to learn how to properly hone a razor from setting the bevel to give it a decent finish.
Heel Repair Video
This was discussed over on SRP and I thought I would throw a quick vid together to illustrate this method of fixing a heel prior to honing. It will take about 3/16" or your edge out of play, but will make honing of most razors a lot easier. Template is a nickel. Feel free to use a different...
www.badgerandblade.com
- Thread starter
- #58
Cutting back the heel will save you a lot of grief. Then, the problem area can be ignored altogether.Heel Repair Video
This was discussed over on SRP and I thought I would throw a quick vid together to illustrate this method of fixing a heel prior to honing. It will take about 3/16" or your edge out of play, but will make honing of most razors a lot easier. Template is a nickel. Feel free to use a different...
I've used a small piece of the 1500 grit film to remove as much metal as I can from the heel and now it's a bit better and I think the razor is more straight when I put only the blade to lay down on a flat surface. Before that the blade by the heel side was standing a bit up in the air while the other side was standing flat on the surface.
I think having one or more Gold Dollars as practice razors should be a must for every newbie so he can see what an perfect and crude straight razor looks like and also to learn how to fix that with some minor adjustments here and there and perhaps also to learn how to change the scales, which is something I would also like to learn and for the most part be independent and be capable of ''almost'' fully restore a straight razor (that isn't in awful condition) some day in the future.
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- #59
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- #60
I couldn't wait any longer, so I decided to shave today and test both the Bismarck and the Gold Dollar and I was barely able to do 1 pass without shaving the moustache and the almost half of my chin, since the hair there is pretty dense and coarse and I felt like I was going to cut myself.
The blades on both razors were definitely sharper than before and somewhat capable of cutting the hair, but I wouldn't call them 100% shave ready. I think that's to be expected from a someone who's new to this game and I would have been really surprised if I could have made those edges super sharp and comfortable at the same time. I definitely need more honing practice mostly with the Gold Dollar and hopefully after a few more attempts it will get better.
The blades on both razors were definitely sharper than before and somewhat capable of cutting the hair, but I wouldn't call them 100% shave ready. I think that's to be expected from a someone who's new to this game and I would have been really surprised if I could have made those edges super sharp and comfortable at the same time. I definitely need more honing practice mostly with the Gold Dollar and hopefully after a few more attempts it will get better.
