Thread: What's the deal with these Damascus blades??

Originally Posted by Magpie

It doesnt matter what the honemiester says about that blade.
There will still be the question of "is this blade the same quality as all the other ones he sells"

If he made sure to get a better blade to Dylan, and all the rest of the ones he sells are of lesser quality, nobody will know until its way too late.

that was exactly my concern when the maker agreed to send Dylan a razor to try out.
it has taken so long even though he has ample supply to dish out..

Originally Posted by OLD_SCHOOL

Personally I think it's disgusting that the majority of people in this thread are assuming the worst of the maker of those razors. How about giving the poor guy a chance!? Unless he can actually hone his razors to the point they are shave ready, he isn't really going to be able to make one excellent razor just for H4P to test out now is he? Instead of everyone jumping in and saying the razors are from Pakistan, or can't hold an edge, or whatever, put your money where your mouth is, and buy one (you don't need to tell him you plan to test and review it on a shaving forum), hone it, test shave with it, and then post your opinions. Until then, you really shouldn't make baseless judgments just because the blades are cheap, without actually trying them out.

For the record: "No, I do not know who the seller is, nor do I have any affiliation with him/her, or any of their potential client base. I just think you all should give the person a fair chance especially since at this point it appears no one has yet tried one of the razors."

I think its the right way to go for every brand,even china (gd)
and razors from pakistan.If it can hold the egde for a while,it would be great. The reason for my negative feelings is the feedbacks from buyers
at ebay buying damascus blades from other sellers.Lets hope im wrong!

Not sure if the quote is his but it is attributed to Herbert Spencer, "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." So let's wait until Dylan gets hold of this fellows work and see if it will take an edge and shave.

Originally Posted by OLD_SCHOOL

What makes you think the razor is made in China or Pakistan? And why base your opinions on comments/feedback about "other" sellers?

I checked this seller's feedback, and out of 1991 transactions in the last 12mths he has only 6 negative feedback, three for not receiving item, 1 accusation of a knife being from Pakistan. I must have scrolled past 2 of the feedback, or some of the grays were originally negatives.

Why not buy one, hone it up and test it before summarily assuming the razor is rubbish? The seller appears to offer 100% refunds, so you may have nothing to lose.

Good Day to you sir.
I said "other sellers",its the opposite this particular seller,isnt it?
I didnt said it came from China or Pakistan.
Its rather timewasting to repeat my earlier posts.
Thank you for the advice but why should i buy this razor,hone it up and send it back for refund,when i dont think its good? Rather timewasting!

Have a nice day,sir.

Opinions, much like orifi, are the possessions of all of us.

I form mine based on logic, intelligence, experience, and deductive reasoning.
Creating damascus by hand in a forge is labor intensive. this is a fact.
Production costs are greatly decreased if your using an assembly line, or even just an auto hammer, or other machine production instead of hand hammered. This is a fact.
if you compare the blades that this person has on his site, to blades being sold elsewhere, you will notice that they are nearly identical. This is a fact.
A number of his items indicate camel bone handles. This is a fact.
Where would a supply of camel bone possibly come from?
I have met numerous blacksmiths, and blade smiths. ALL of them take pride in their work, and stamp them with their mark. Why are there no marks on these blades?
You say we should not judge without investigation. Well, who lives near this "maker" ? They should go see their workshop, and see first hand the forging.
I LOVE touring places like that, and the smiths I know all show them off happily!
So, MY opinion, is based on what I see, what I hear, and what I am NOT seeing, and not hearing.
I'm not ashamed at all of my opinion, or how I reached my conclusions.
And I WAS going to buy one and have it honed, just to see, before Dylan made what I felt was a mistake, in having the man send a sample out for review. Its like Chevy sending Car and Driver Magazine a worked over one off clean machine, instead of a dealers lot model.
Now that you have all talked about this so much, the prices on the blades have increased past the point where I would be willing to take such a gamble.
Stepping down now...

There's nothing useful on the topic of this thread anymore, so I'm closing it.
If somebody gets a first hand experience with one of these razor, please contact a moderator to reopen it.

My razor arrived today. All I have done is unwrap her and look her over. Here are my initial impressions:

Packaging was not great. The razor came in a plastic wrapping inside a leather case which was also inside a plastic wrapping. This was in the shipping box. No additional padding. Though, IMO, the razor is perfectly safe like this, the leather case was free to move about the box. Peanuts? Bubble wrap?

I have nothing really to say about the leather case. It's orange on the outside, black inside, and it feels like leather. Pretty standard, IMO.

The razor came with a thin coat of oil or some such, so that's nice. The blade is 13/16... ish. There is a bit of a frown to the blade - wider at the toe, tapers a bit just past halfway to the heal, and then widens up just a touch at the heal. The spine is 3/16 thick - so I'm sure someone could figure out the bevel angle and determine if that's acceptable or not. (It sounds about right to me... the massive W&B's had 1/4 inch spines and were around 8/8, so this should be reasonable I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.) Filework on the spine feels smoothly done, so I don't anticipate any issues when stropping. The grind is that "truncated shoulderless" look, and the cutting edge is about 2.5 inches.

Scales feel like a natural material to me, but I'm not sure what. There are some pits in the front scale, and one larger "groove." The scales are straight and their thickness is reasonable, IMO. I can't tell what the "pins" are, but they do not look like normal pins. The razor is loose in the scales - there is no wiggle, but also no snugness. The only place things get more snug is around 180 degrees, when the tang is between the scales. As far as I can tell, this is because the razor does not taper along the tang/pivot/early tail.

Here are initial pictures before honing. Right out of the box.

A few more pics

Holli - those scales look a little bit like water buffalo horn to me - I have a few blanks somewhere that have that kind of streaky mottling in them.

Regards,
Neil

Well, I've started the honing process. I'd say so far I've spent about an hour with my Norton 1k. My DMT is only 6 x 2, so I didn't want to use that, and I wanted to avoid the Norton 220 and Naniwa 400 because they are not hard enough and they would have been dished in the process.

I put on a layer of tape and began with some normal circles, just for kicks to see what the wear would look like. Unsurprisingly, I found that this razor is going to need a lot of work.

Leaving the tape on (just in case), I lifted up the spine about one width and used a back and forth motion, alternating sides every 100 or 200 strokes, depending on how high I felt like counting that time. I did this until I had most of the frown out. I then added a second layer of tape and, again, did back and forth strokes but now with the spine on the hone as well.

I still have a double bevel from the jointing and I have not got the whole frown out. I just don't feel like working on the razor anymore at the moment.

Something interesting that I've noticed is that the wear patterns on the tape when I do have the spine down are not even from toe to heel and do not match from side to side. I'll post some pictures of it next time I sit down for honing. Oh, and naturally, the bevel is growing wider where the razor was wider (toe and heel area) but not in the frown - this is what I would expect, but I figured I'd mention it anyway.