Thread: Dovo steel

I have been honing 7 razors for free this past week and they all turned out fine, in my opinion, except for one. I am having trouble with the first Dovo that I have ever honed and I am hoping I can get some collective wisdom.

I have found under the microscope that the edge has numerous bubbles in the steel. That is, apparently when the forging was done there was residual air that remained in the steel so when I hone I reveal these bubbles at the edge with the result being the equivalent of pitting at the edge. I will be at work until late tonight so I cannot post photos until later this evening. This is a new, barely used razor. It is not pitting. Honing on the bevel reveals cross sections of these bubbles along the width of the bevel.

I'm thinking the owner would be better off exchanging since there is no reason to assume the bubbles will disappear deeper into the edge.

Has anyone seen anything like this in a new razor?

I've taken an interest in DOVO recently.

They appear to have different steels that they use in their modern razors.

The have Swedish carbon steel, Swedish stainless steel, Swedish stainless Steel hardened in Ice Water and Swedish silver steel. In addition they have German Stainless and German carbon steel.

I'm sure I have read about the problem you have encountered before and it was put down to faulty metal.

I agree with English. It sounds like a serious defect in the steel. I can't imagine that Dovo would not replace this razor. After all, they can check out the problem themselves, and they can't blame it on any maltreatment of the user.
They are not going to say it was kept too long in a car's glove compartment, are they?

I have not yet seen something that fits your description, so I have no further information to offer.

Best regards,
Bart.

It may be the case that the razor never had the initial bevel created at the factory. If not then what your seeing is the edge as it comes from the forge and heat treating. I would suggest using a coarse grit, 500-1000, for 50-100 laps and see if that takes care of the problem. If not then send the razor back.

Just my $.02,

Randy, you may be correct. I seem to have succeeded in honing beyond the bubbles and the test shave this morning was just fine. I'm going to try to tweak it a little more tonight and mail it out tomorrow before the guy starts to think that I decided to keep it!

I had suggested that I was going to show photos of the edge but my camera did not have adequate resolution to be of any use through the scope.