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I'm thinking of getting one of the cheap razors from China, it's a ZY and the seller claims it is better quality than GD and sharpened by a 67 year old master. it's only $8 with shipping so i thought it would be worth the risk. ( unless someone has had experience with them and can give me a heads up). just wondered if there would be duty on it which would take me over my gambling limit.
ZY Shave Ready Straight Razor HRC60 Stainless Steel Extra Sharp vs Gold Dollar | eBay
Sounds extremely cheap. They say "if it sounds too good to be true it isn't.".
Haven't heard of that one. Not a big loss if it is no good.
I think there is doody on it.
The bevel on the one the seller uses for the ebay picture looks a bit wonky for something straight out of the box. OTOH it might make a shaver - as we know, the GDs mostly do - with a lot of work:p
It's really down to the steel quality (composition, hardening and tempering) and the grind quality - what can go wrong there? Just about everything in the wrong hands!
As Grazor said, you won't be too far out of pocket if it is rubbish.
Worse case scenario, you end up with a cool letter opener.
I follow the old adage "you get what you pay for".
IMHO don't waste your time, spend a bit more for something you will have a use for.
..............let's see,.......$US8.00 would be the equivalent to $CAD55.00. :shrug:
Found another seller selling exactly the same razor with exactly the same description within the listing though the listing title was different. The master must work at the factory or both of these sellers are the same person.
I have heard good things about the zy razor actually. From what I heard you can shave with it out of box just not the most comfortable shave and it hones easily. Haven't heard anything about edge durability though. Been thinking about ordering one my self.
I ordered two of these out of curiosity. Neither was shave ready, and the edge was kind of a joke with chips or very wavy. They both shave well after complete rehoning but do not expect to shave well with the edge as-is. They are "better" than a GD in the sense that they don't have the heel issues, so they are much easier to hone. I have no idea about the steel quality or edge retention yet.
This is a public forum. You'd be wise not to question the ways of the 67 year old master.
probably more or less same as a GD with a little bit better attention to the shoulder and grind, but probably not much
It's a POS.
1. The metal is dull and crudely polished- yes I know satin and bead blasting- these are still "polishes" in blade nomenclature.
2.The blade mentions no stain- Stainless Steel
3.430 isn't meaningful unless it's the maker's birthday. it is however an ASTM designation for T-430 Stainless- a low carbon steel. Annealed. It doesn't take temper.
if they were going though the trouble to rip people off, they might want to consult with a metallurgist, welder...anyone before they brag about the alloy used to make their great shaver by etching it into the side thinking no one will notice.
I have two. One's O.K. but the other is useless except for burnishing hones, image below. Oh, and they are not stainless, they will rust with plain water on them - I tested them. BTW, the Gold Dollar 800 isn't stainless either.
What they appear to be is a Gold Dollar with the heel work done, which is not a bad idea especially since they don't seem to cost much if any more. They're not better quality IMO, about the same. I use Gold Dollars for test razors and for that they're fine. They take a decent edge and hold it pretty well. They are not fun to shave with.
Cheers, Steve
i wondered if they were the same as GD. this auction for a GD lists the brand as ZY.
Gold Dollar 600 Shaving Straight Razor Handmade Honed Shave Ready Extra Sharp | eBay
That's the vendor I got mine from. I left a negative feedback based on 1 of 2 razors I received. Could you just please look at them before you sell them? Ref previous image. I believe probably not, that is not the business model which is OK, these razors are not intended for the western market.Quote:
Originally Posted by tintin
If you order, Gold Dollar rules apply; if you want a good one, order 6. If you're lucky, you'll have 3-4. If not, probably 1-2. On average, you'll have 2-3 decently ground razors, meaning you won't have to go below a 500 grit stone or sandpaper to set the bevel.
I am not dissing the vendor or Gold Dollars. They're cheap Chinese razors made for a different market with different needs.
Cheers, Steve
I was pondering ordering a couple of them just to pirate the scales...at 8$ it's cheaper than ordering replacements from anywhere I have found!
Stainless steel does rust. It's just slower - rust resistant, not rust proof. And according to the seller, they're stainless. Copied from their page:Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve56
Quote:
Material:Black Plastic Handle and stainless steel Razor
Both my Gold Dollar 800 and the ZY-430 will rust within 1 hour with plain water on them. I did this and this is not the definition of stainless to me. Try it yourself and see. The attached image shows a 60-90 minute exposure to plain water drops.
Cheers, Steve
Whoops. Looks like they the used stainmore.
Heat treating increases inter granular corrosion in T 430- I noticed it's at the honed areas. Also what is plain water?
Not saying that I believe them for one second when they laser etch an alloy name into the side- it doesn't make it that alloy.
Filtered tap water.Quote:
Originally Posted by jnats
Cheers, Steve
My Gold Dollar is a 208. Different steel. You'll have to argue the definition of stainless with the manufacturer. I assume the manufacturer knows the difference, since the 208 is advertised as carbon and the 600/800 are marketed as stainless.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve56
Then again, it is China and they could well be using the same steel in all of them and labeling it different because who's actually gonna check on a sub $30 razor? I wouldn't have even thought to leave water on it to test the metal.
There is definitely a difference between the stainless gd 66 and gd 208. Having worked on both the gd 208 is much softer then the 66. Which is what you would expect for carbon steel vs stainless steel.
As to leaving water on the blade to test it tells you nothing if you don't have much more data then just two blades you don't think are stainless. You need a much larger sample with all different grades of stainless to have that test mean something. Different grades will be more stain resistant then others.
I have stainless steel pocket knives from reputable companies that I have used in the rain for less time then an hr that have had rust spots when I went to dry them. Then you have things like dinnerware that get left wet all the time with no problem.
Wait a tic...carbon is supposed to be harder than stainless isn't it? Either everything I've learned about steel is a lie, or GD's carbon steel is really bad if it's softer than stainless.
This is correct. The biggest difference is that's 18/8 like T 304, which is resistive to most dilute acids. T-430 is not resilient against any less than 100% pur sulphuric acid. Knoxville used to be a leading us miner of coal, and they have a fly ash problem. Sulfur gets into water and it binds with CO2 to form H2SO4 or sulphuric acid. Municipalities will do what they can and pH correct, but chlorine has a high pH, your brita strips that- you're left with acidic water. What filtration are you using? If it doesn't pH correct- there's another big difference. Again- the corrosion is concentrated at the honed areas- attempting to heat treat T430 leads to accelerated inter granular corrosion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Castel33
What color are the spark when you grind one to a nub on a belt grinder? ;)
Actually TVA solved the sulphur issue 10-15 years ago when scrubbers were installed at all the coal plants. But before that you're right, they had a severe problem. I worked at ORNL for 33+ years, and once the Kingston plant flyashed the parking lot and ate the paint off several hundred cars which TVA had to repaint. You could see flyash on your car. They actually installed a carwash at the Bull Run plant for Oak Ridge workers, all you had to do was show your badge for a free car wash anytime you wanted. But again, that was over a decade ago.
You could tell the difference in the Smoky mountains when they installed the scrubbers, many times you could not do color photography because the sky was yellow. Once a fellow photog told me he loved those peach and purples in the sunset, and I told him it was supposed to be orange and magenta, but everything was skewed yellow.
But anyway, I did nuclear and materials technolgy and am familiar with many materials. While folks are eager to instruct me about my erroneous assumptions, I'd much rather hear about your own experiments with the GD 800 and ZY-430.
Cheers, Steve
Well, my ZY arrived today and it looks like I lucked a good one. It wasn't shave ready by a long chalk but the bevel was even and the hone marks on the spine were not too bad either. A marker test on a hone after taping the spine revealed pretty good contact except for one small area near the toe on the brand side of the blade. The spine width was 5.96 mm +or- 0.01 mm along its length and the included angle of the edge was 16.3 degrees. This suggests that the grinder knew what he was doing and the object of the exercise was to make a razor rather than an RSO;)
Feeling that a full bevel set was justified I took it to the Shapton GS 1000 and the Norton 4k/8k, with some finishing strokes across the Shapton Pro 12000. I then stropped on canvas and leather with the result that the well known hair test that nobody likes much passed just fine. Shave test to come on Saturday.
The fit and finish of the razor is roughly Gold Dollar standard but the shoulderless design means no problems at the heel. I can't give an opinion on the metallurgy of the blade - I've oiled mine as I want to shave with it first before checking for rust development.
Got mine in yesterday. The scales were not the ones pictured and the thing weighs a ton. BUT it is 1000 times better then Gold Dollar. I have made a Gold Dollar shave ready and by the time I was done, I had completely waisted a 240 grit stone and it didn't even look like a razor anymore. The ZY was at least true hollow grind so I could at least make it into shave ready without any more work than any other razor. I also had a Thiers Issard in for sharpening that had be VERY neglected and rust spots, but no chipping. Took me about the same amount of time to get the ZY shave ready as that one. So all in all for the $8 I paid for it I'd call it plausible to buy, as long as you don't mind honing it or having someone hone it. It was NOT shave ready when received. I will continue to use it for a while and see how it holds up. I got the 430 "no stain" by the way so we will see.
Ok guys it's now April 23 and I started this on Feb. 23. So 2 months later I have had NO issues with the razor. It is on the softer side, so you don't have to strop it but 10 times on each side to get it back to shaving smooth. BUT you do want to strop it every time you use it for a good shave. Overall for $8 this is actually amazing for the money. If you are willing to re-hone the razor or willing to pay me or someone else $20 on top of the $8 to re-hone the razor then it is definitely good to go. That being said there are some nice vintage razors in the 28 to 30 dollar range that are truly shave ready on e-bay if you find the right seller. NOTE many vintage straight razors say "Shave Ready" on e-bay and are no where near close. Overall I am happy with my purchase, but I just got two more vintage razors in and I want to move on from this one. 2 months of using only this razor is more than enough time to test it out and it actually passes. It's still junk compared to $100 razors, but it is a straight razor that can shave well with a little bit of work.