Straight Edge Razor Find
- Thread starter hawk8945
- Start date
I would say no. Sheffield, German, French, Japanese or American steel, no issues. It always depends in what condition, of course...
I don't know a whole lot on straight razors, but I know the one bit of information when I was considering them was that it was best to avoid razors from Pakistan. The info was from the art of manliness website on how to restore straight razors.
Walk away from the Pakastani razor!!! They are notoriously horrible quality.
Lol! A Pakistani razor can be made to shave, but the effort may not be commensurate with the results. YMMV 
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Forget it. If you want a cheapo look for a Gold Dollar #66 on ebay and don't pay over $5 including shipping.
It will be nearly impossible for you to hone that rascal without prior knowledge and experience, but when you got it, it will shave. The Paki blade is a no-buy especially at that price. A well tuned GD is a pretty good razor. Better as a newbie to go to www.whippeddog.com though.
It will be nearly impossible for you to hone that rascal without prior knowledge and experience, but when you got it, it will shave. The Paki blade is a no-buy especially at that price. A well tuned GD is a pretty good razor. Better as a newbie to go to www.whippeddog.com though.
Walk away from anything that made in Pakistan. There is just no way to tell what quality the steel is but it is most likely LOW.
From what I have recently found out I wouldn't bother with most Chinese razors either.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
If you are willing to invest a lot of sweat equity then the Gold Dollar, Double Arrow, and Gold Monkey razors are pretty good. I really like my modded Gold Dollars... EXCELLENT razors once you got one fixed the way you want it. Those are the only brands of straight razors I have seen that are made in China. It is kinda cool to take an under $4 (including shipping!) razor and make it shave as good as most $200 razors.
Certain other people badmouth these $4 razors, partly because they themselves sell razors costing $80 on up, some because they have some reason to agree with those persons, some just parroting the first two groups, and many more who have tried to hone these razors using ordinary methods and getting nowhere. The fact of the matter is, the Gold Dollar and its ilk is ground by workers with zero experience or skill with straight razors. I think they are just copying a picture of a razor as they grind LOL! And these things probably wholesale at well under a buck apiece, so the name of the game is volume, not quality, anyhow. The spines are crooked, the shoulders intrude into the honing plane, there is a heavy ramp of steel leading up to the shoulder, the grind marks are not progressively ground and polished out, the scales are cheesy, the bevel angle is too heavy, and I could go on and on. Basically out of the box they are generally useless. But the steel is good, and it is properly heat treated and tempered, and mostly there is too much steel, not too little, so a bit of grinding can nearly always fix one of these razor-shaped metal objects. NOT, IMHO, for the newbie, but a fun diversion for someone looking to branch off in a tangent and be creative. Some absolutely breathtaking razors, true works of art, have been crafted out of the Gold Dollar, especially the infamous #66. See the threads here on B&B. I am working on a few right now, actually.
One of the members here, I think maybe it was Seraphim, reports success giving similar treatment to the Paki blades, BTW. But still, not for the newbie. For LESS than $25, you can get a good vintage whipped dog, already honed.
