Thread: Do you get what you pay for?

Originally Posted by TulaneBoy

Another good shave! But I was a little disappointed. I was advised to go with the cheapie again, and by someone else to try the Dovo, and the dilemma was like overwhelming. My Dad said just go for it and go with the Dovo. Of course he was in the bathroom coaching and cautioning until I reminded him that I now am an experienced straight shaver and he is not, and properly chastened, he hastened out of the bathroom. Well, I thought WTH, and I was really curious about the Dovo, and it was kinda like eeny meemy miney mo and so away I did go with the brand new Dovo.

First of all I don't know if I mentioned it but the edge is sort of uneven from one side and one end to the other. Apparently that's not supposed to be a big deal as long as there is a bevel on both sides all the way down, and the width of it doesn't matter. Still, I am still sort of miffed about it because the cheap razor is more consistent and even. Of course a lot of work was done on it so I am sure it was worse right from the factory, and I am sure the Dovo can be made as even as the Gold Dollar by the right guy. I am so confident of that, in fact, that I have made arrangements to send the Dovo to the same guy I got my Gold Dollar from, so he can fix it up like he fixed up the Gold Dollar. I also ordered a full blown custom Gold Dollar from him for $60. Is that too much? I saw some pics of some he has done and they are pretty cool looking. He says he can make the Dovo look like a Klingon ritual combat razor ROTFL! He says he will do it for free and just charge me a few bucks for the scale material and pins and stuff, cause he just thinks it will be fun to customize a Dovo like that.

But back to the shave. I was a little worried that it wouldn't shave all that well, especially since my Dad's friend said not to expect much from the Dovo on account of it was Dovo's entry level razor, but it did pretty good. As good as the cheapo? Well, not sayin. But I just kind of feel like for the money difference, it should have shaved way better than the cheapie. I don't feel like I really got my moneys worth. Well, I did, but compared to the low price I paid for the cheapo it wasn't such a hot deal. But hey, I'm just starting so take all this with a grain of salt. I gave the Dovo a good workout on the balsa after I got done shaving, and it mows arm hair down like grass, now, without touching the skin. I think the next shave with it will be better. I am feeling a lot more comfortable with the straight razor now. At first I couldn't decide whether to shave both sides of my face with my right hand, or switch hands. I finally decided that once a rightie, always a rightie and so that question is out of the way. This second shave I was a lot smoother with it and I got it done a lot quicker, like maybe 20 minutes for two passes including lathering and stuff. But the Dovo did leave my face nice and smooth and the aftershave didn't hardly burn at all. In fact it burnt less than it did after my first shave.

The Dovo feels a lot lighter and less stable. The Chinese junk razor is heavier and just feals more steady in my hand and has more momentum, like it goes CHARGE! into the enemy whisker camp, spearing and slashing everything standing. The Dovo kind of hesitates a little, like, "Hey General Custer, can I be excused for the rest of the afternoon?" LOL! I had to force it a little. My shave angle might be the cause of that I don't know. It shaved my face nice and smooth, but the Gold Dollar was like eager to slay those whisker hairs and never wimped out on me. I am hoping that as I get used to it, I will like it a lot more. And I do want to get a nicer mid level Dovo so I have something that is definitely high quality. I guess I need a few more shaves with the Dovo before I do anything rash.

Oh, I did get one small cut, right on my chin, where I cut myself several times before with my shavette straight. Not the razor's fault though. I was getting too careless.

I started to strop on my Illinois strop but the razor sort of sticks and drags on the leather so I finished on the newspaper hobo strop, 50 laps. That was before my shave. After shaving as I mentioned, I stropped on the balsa wood strop and then 20 laps on the hobo. Tomorrow I will do the Dovo again and see if that helped any.

I am really impressed with regular straight razor shaving so far, and it is a way improvement over the shavette straight razor. It is easier and gentler on my face. Don't want to sound like a wimp, but the shavette felt kind of punishing sometimes, especially slapping on the aftershave. The regular straight razors are a lot nicer to my facial skin.

UPDATE

I tried stropping a little bit on the Big Daddy and it had that same pully-sticky feeling so I wiped it down good with a rag and paint thinner to get the excess oil and saddle soap off of it. After drying for an hour I stropped again and wow! Much nicer! The dryer leather is way easier to use! I just wonder if it is having any effect on the razor because it is just gliding over it. Should I re-oil it a little? My Dad's buddy said rub it with the palm of my hand and let the skin oil do it. He sounds like he knows what he is talking about, but does that sound like good advice to you guys? Should I be looking for just a little bit of a resistance, or a lot, or none at all? Does it even matter?

Thanks a bunch, guys!

From what I am able to sift from your shaving reports I think you're doing very well, and asking the same questions we did when we started.

I would find out once and for all if the Dovo is bent or twisted if you have a gut feeling something is wrong with it. I get the idea that it is all right because of the way you described your shave with it.

A Dovo at any price point (that's not defective) should be an excellent shaver. Reading between the lines, I'd say that the "wimpiness" stems from the fact that it is a smaller and lighter razor than the Gold Dollar you have. When I was a beginner I liked larger, heavier razors because they helped shave off the whiskers while my skills were lacking. Now I prefer smaller razors, because I can maneuver them better.

The knock on Gold Dollars is not the steel, but the workmanship. A lot of hobbyists enjoy buying them and either working out the imperfections, or totally re-designing the razor into something original. I see a lot of these for sale, and I even have three of these. I also think a key to selling their razors are to convince people that the cheaper Dovos are inferior to their creations.

Long-time straight razor shavers who aren't trying to sell you anything try to advise you to stick to the tried and true brands of straights during the learning curve. After that, you can have a bad experience with a razor and be unscathed by it.

I think you are a fast learner and it won't take you very long to become an skilled straight shaver.

Originally Posted by CaliforniaCajun

From what I am able to sift from your shaving reports I think you're doing very well, and asking the same questions we did when we started.

I would find out once and for all if the Dovo is bent or twisted if you have a gut feeling something is wrong with it. I get the idea that it is all right because of the way you described your shave with it.

A Dovo at any price point (that's not defective) should be an excellent shaver. Reading between the lines, I'd say that the "wimpiness" stems from the fact that it is a smaller and lighter razor than the Gold Dollar you have. When I was a beginner I liked larger, heavier razors because they helped shave off the whiskers while my skills were lacking. Now I prefer smaller razors, because I can maneuver them better.

The knock on Gold Dollars is not the steel, but the workmanship. A lot of hobbyists enjoy buying them and either working out the imperfections, or totally re-designing the razor into something original. I see a lot of these for sale, and I even have three of these. I also think a key to selling their razors are to convince people that the cheaper Dovos are inferior to their creations.

Long-time straight razor shavers who aren't trying to sell you anything try to advise you to stick to the tried and true brands of straights during the learning curve. After that, you can have a bad experience with a razor and be unscathed by it.

I think you are a fast learner and it won't take you very long to become an skilled straight shaver.

Thanks again, CC!

Craig, the guy I got the Gold Dollar from, is eager to do his magic on the Dovo but I want to shave with it a couple more times, first. I got a "raw" Gold Dollar and it is really something to laugh at, compared to what he did to my good one. Wow... those things sure are crude right out of the box! Robinson, my Dad's buddy who put me in touch with him, says I won't be disappointed in either the reworked Dovo or the full custom Gold Dollar. He's gone right now but when he gets back he says he has a bunch of razors and I am welcome to just pick one and keep it, or swap it back in for a different one, like a razor library or something. I got to say, my Dad has a lot of really cool friends. Don't matter what the subject, my Dad knows somebody who is like an expert at it. Seriously... I check with him before looking on google or Wikipedia cause he always comes up with somebody whose got the answers. And then the one guy, well he usually knows still other guys, which is how I connected with Craig, my Gold Dollar mechanic. And it was Robinson, my Dad's friend, who first sent me to this website. He showed me another one but they are mostly all about safety razors and I am only interested in straight razors so I came here.

My Dad just interrupted my typing and gave me something. I didn't even know he had it. I am just speechless about it but not type-less so I will tell you what he gave me. My Great-Grandpa obviously was a straight shaver cause I now have his strop. Well if he was a straight shaver, then what else would he have had? Yuppers you guessed it. I would have thought that any razor that old would be covered in rust byt actually my Dad just gave me my Great Grandpa's straight razor! He said it had a little rust on it at one time but he cleaned it up and polished the daylights out of it. I am gonna get my Dad's friend to sharpen it but it is already kinda sharp. It is a Barnsley Bros razor made in Monett MO. I just wiped it down with a little motor oil and wrapped it in wax paper and stuck it back in its case for now cause I don't want to mess it up. I really got all lumped up in the throat over that. That was just so cool.

Nice! I like your writing style. Entertaining.

Well I thought I better catch everybody up on what's going on with me. My Dad's buddy has been teaching me to hone and I am now the proud owner of a genuine imitation Swatty barber hone, a King 1k/6k stone, and a bunch of lapping film. I have also been using my Dad's biggest translucent Arkansas stone but it takes forever with that bad boy. I was really amazed at how easy it actually is to sharpen a razor if you don't give up and rush through the different grits. He lent me several razors to practice on and I have got good shaves from every edge except maybe the first attempt on the first razor. This morning I honed a "worn out" Double Duck Satin Edge and had probably my best shave yet, and tonight I will re-hone my souped-up Gold Dollar cause I think now I can actually improve the edge I got it with. He also gave me a couple of in the rough Gold Dollars still in their cheesy thin cardboard boxes to mess around with after showing me all the issues I need to fix on one. Actually he gave me another one a week ago but I didn't listen and I ruined the temper by grinding too long on it without a cooldown. He called it the Blue Stain of Death LOL! Apparently that razor is totally useless now. He says that since it has already been ground to final thickness, it is too thin to re-temper it or re heat treat it or whatever. So garbazh. I will be more carefull next time. He has my Dovo and says he will tune it up when he gets time after restoring a bunch of ebay razors he has waiting. My Dad has got the bug now. I just taught him how to straight shave LOL! Finally after all the stuff he has taught me, I was able to teach him something besides how to reset a router and stuff. He shaved Friday and this morning he still looks like he has been shaving wildcats unstead of his face LOL! But he is getting it I think. I got my Chinese Virginia Sheng brushes in Friday and they are kind of nice, especially for the money I think. I got a big ol silvertip and a smaller black badger my Dad (happy birthday Dad!) and another for traveling so if I lose it I am only out ten bucks. The Big Daddy strop is flattening out nice. I don't see why I would ever need another strop. That Big Daddy really rocks.

I got to say, these vintage razors are actually pretty cool. They ALL seem to shave good once you know how to tune them up and get em sharp. I got my own magic brew for sterilizing them. A bottle of Old Spice, some Listerine, HEET gas additive, and Lysol. Maybe I ought to add some acetone too. Anyway even without the acetone I don't think any microcritters can survive a soak in that stuff. Would acetone harm plastic scales, though? The HEET is nothing but methyl alcohol and it doesn't seem to hurt anything but I only soak razors in it for a half hour or so.

And the Saints are 3-0! Yow! Who Dat? Superbowl here we come again!

Hey again everybody! Today I discovered the true power of balsa wood and diamond paste. My mentor gave me a little dab of .1 micron, .25 micron, and 1 micron diamond paste, then I went to our local model railroad place on Airline and got me some balsa wood. Sanded it flat and smooth and applied the diamond stuff. It didn't look like enough but he told me it would look like it wasn't enough, but to just rub it in anyway. I touched up the Double Duck with it using a stropping motion and the shave was sooooooo sweeeeeeeeeeet. I tried this before but I didn't really know how to do it. I put way too much before. Tried green chromium oxide too, don't know what grit, but I think I put too much of that, too, and didn't use balsa. Tonight I am gonna hit my first Gold Dollar with it and shave with that one tomorrow. So many razors, so little time. I now own a Robeson Shure Edge, the Duck, 5 Gold Dollars in various levels of modification, the Dovo which is out getting worked on, a Boker Twin Werks, my Great Grandpa's Barnsley Bros, and I have a Dovo Bismarck on loan that I might end up buying. Also my razor expert guy helped me pick out a half dozen straights on ebay to bid on. The Bismarck reminds me of the super modified Gold DOllar a little bit with the curvy profile and all, and the weight is similar, maybe slightly heavier than the Dollar. I can't believe that I have this many razors already! Hey, I only got one face to shave! Does it ever stop? I was warned about this razor buying getting out of control but I didn't think it was really gonna be an issue. I guess I am not gonna save much money by going with the straights instead of cartridges after all!

By The Way, whatever you do if you are not used to the balsa wood, don't try to hone on it with the edge forward. Don't ask me how I know that this is bad. LOL! Funny thing is after slicing into the balsa (twice) that part of the edge seemed even sharper. But the poor balsa wood didn't like it one bit. That experiment endid with tragic consequences for the balsa.

Well everybody must be getting bored with my rambling. Sorry guys I got a little ADD and I am taking stuff for it but it still creeps out once in a while. I do get a little too much energy sometimes. Well, I do like my caffeine haha.

So my question now is: Is stropping every day on balsa with .1 micron diamond paste gonna wear out my razors prematurely? I was told that this fine of a grit doesn't grind off hardly any metal... only like a few molecules worth. What do you guys think?