How unrealistic would it be to try and restore this razor by myself?

I received this brand new Dovo razor for my birthday a few years ago. I should have immediately returned it but I did not realize in how bad of shape it was. The thing is essentially completely useless and always has been, I have only ever used it 2 or 3 times because it could barely cut hair at all. I tried honing it up myself on micron paper I had lying around, that didn't help either (my technique was probably really bad then, though.)

Here is a thorough imgur album of the blade itself.

Before you tell me to take it to a professional and that I'm wasting my time, I actually live down the street from the most well known sharpener in my entire city, I have taken it to him twice, but he does not specialize in straight razors and mainly does knives and tools, so he good take whatever edge it had and make it temporarily sharp, but could not actually get it in good working shape. So far I have not found anyone in my city who is good at this but I will continue to look.

In the mean time, I have a king 1000 stone and the popular norton 4k/8k stone. I tried just giving it a good edge myself carefully following a guide, and I do believe my technique is pretty decent, but the result was still that the razor cannot even cut arm hair roughly, it simply will not cut at all except for the heel of the blade and one small spot near the toe, the middle is worthless.

If I were study how to restore this using rolling x strokes by myself do you think I would have any chance of succeeding?

That is a low-cost Dovo. I have the same one and another of the same grade. They can be honed as I shave with both of the ones I have. You have the 1k 4k and 8k so you have the basics to get a shaveable edge. It's just the time and effort needed to do this. Honing takes practice. It's not like sharpening as your friend down the street has said. Honing takes time to learn to get it right. With a little instruction (we have one guy here that will be happy to post up instructions when he finds you) you can make it shave. But for a good edge, it takes a lot of time and effort and time and more time. Oh, and a little more time. If you put in an hour or two every day for 6 months or so it will happen. Kidding. But that is just to let you know it's not something you just do the first time.

Use a layer of electrical tape on the spine so you don't damage it right away. Change the tape often. Watch some videos on youtube. Glen/GSSIXGUN has some good ones to help you learn. Marty will be along shortly and will help too. The first thing is to post your pictures HERE! Some of us old guys would rather not go to a link unless we know where it comes from.

That's enough for now from me. BTW, Welcome to SRP. The best place on the web to learn straight razors.

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Originally Posted by Gasman

But for a good edge, it takes a lot of time and effort and time and more time. Oh, and a little more time. If you put in an hour or two every day for 6 months or so it will happen. Kidding. But that is just to let you know it's not something you just do the first time.

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I would be dead seriously fine with trying it a couple times a week for the next 6 months, my only real concern would be causing further damage to the blade. If I were to attempt to hone it myself 20-25 times before I got it right, would I not lose an obvious amount of blade? I don't want my 6/8" blade to go down to a 5/8" blade by the time I can get my first good shave out if it, if this is avoidable. Also you say honing takes a long time to learn and I believe you, but I hear that restoring, or specifically restoring the edge of a damaged blade is much harder yet. I'll try embedding some photos but they are hi-res and there is a ton of them, I would likely have to kill the resolution to upload any of them here, imgur is the most popular image-host on the web though it shouldn't be an issue really.

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Good advice from Jerry aka Gasman. Marty goes by the screen name Euclid440. He will spend a lot of time with people if they listen.
My advice is to read up on some posts, watch some of Glen's videos as Jerry suggested and make sure your stones are flat, smoothed and champhered correctly. Honing is a learned skill and is harder than it seems from the start but it is not impossible. Everyone here who does it started out not knowing just like you. For starters I would look at the "Honing" section of the forum and read, read, read. You will get it if you are patient and stick with it. And if you get stumped or need more info you can ask. Someone will help you.

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Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

For starters I would look at the "Honing" section of the forum and read, read, read. You will get it if you are patient and stick with it. And if you get stumped or need more info you can ask. Someone will help you.

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Do you think there is anything I should pay special attention to given the warped nature of my blade or should I just learn how to hone generally and that will follow naturally?

You will probably find threads titled that way. If not you can do a search. There is an advanced search tool but you can also search a thread and I think maybe search an individual sub forum.

When new to honing you will wear down a few blades. That's why you start with lower cost razors. And dont start with warped blades as that is going to make learning much slower. Pick up a few 1930 pre-war razors, american made and learn on them. Ebay cost is around 30 bucks each. But the one you have shouldnt cost much more than that but being warped its not going to help you. When you learn to hone you can run a warped blade across the stone twice and you feel what needs done. That takes a long time to learn so start with straight blades.

Oh yea, the best sharpener in town, we hear that all the time, he’s a knife guy so no he ain’t who you want. Just man up and get one of the razor guys here to do it, learn how to strop and shave. Hell till then you don’t even know what a shave ready razor is

Honing a straight razor is not at all like sharpening a knife or a pair of scissors. Take the advice and do some homework reading about razor honing and watching some of gssixgun’s videos. You won’t be ready to properly sharpen a warped razor until you’ve managed to get a consistently good edge on a properly ground and well manufactured razor.

I wasn’t able to get a decent edge on a razor I have that is warped for a couple of years. I just let it sit in my “to be honed” drawer while I developed my honing skills with my good razors and learned how to properly use my hones. Then I took some guidance from the more experienced folks here on how to identify and properly tape the spine to compensate for the warp.

Be patient. Develop you basic honing skills and master your hones with good razors. Then take on the challenge of troublesome blade.

Some good advice above. The reason we recommended taping the spine, is because people new to honing tend to put far to much pressure on the spine and prematurely wear the spine down and mess up the geometry. I looked through your pictures and I’m not sure that it is warped. Yes it does not sit flat on the hone, but that can be caused by many things, like a smile and that is not a bad thing. Watch some honing videos by gssixgun. There are a ton of honing threads here. Also the foundation to every great shaving edge is the bevel set, typically done on the 1K hone. Optics are the easiest way to hone. There are a ton of sharpness tests out there, but they can be difficult to get correct. If I knew where you were it would be easier to direct you to help. Often mailing them to someone reasonably close is a good way to get them assessed and honed.

Welcome to SRP. I tried to upload some of your photos for reference but it won't let me...
From what I can see, I the right hands your razor can be honed easy enough.
From not using tape and using excessive pressure there is some hone wear to the spine, the stabilizer has been honed on which causes the bevel to lift so extra pressure has been used for the bevel to make contact which causes a wide uneven bevel. Don't worry your not the first and certainly not the last to do this.

Personally I'd send it to a pro honer from SRP so at least you have a benchmark to go by.

If you want to hone yourself read everything in the SRP library. Then lap your 1k to ensure its flat with some 600g wet and dry. Take a sharpie and ink the edge. Tape the spine. With the blade flat at 45 degrees and the heel/stabilizer off the hone do an X stroke up and down the hone. Look at the bevel, you will see where the sharpie has come off. If it's all off repeat until the two sides of the bevel are complete. If you look down the bevel under light you should see no sparkles, if there is it means the bevels not formed properly. Once it is carry on with your 4k and 8k removing all previous stria.

Job done.

Sounds easy enough but it can be a right pain in the ....

I haven't seen the pictures either but from the description from others it sounds like you probably need a heel correction. It's very common for the stabilizer to get in the way of honing even with brand new razors, even high-end ones. Now, you can work around it by just letting it (stabilizer) sit off the edge of the stone but the easier and better way to do it is to do a heel correction which you should be able to do yourself if you have a diamond plate or file. Marty/Euclid440 has a good tutorial on it which you can find in a search but in short find a coin that is about the same width as the blade from spine to edge and place it on top of the blade with it even with the spine, the edge, and the heel and take a sharpie and mark a line around the coin at the heel. Then use the diamond plate or a diamond file and shape it with very light strokes in the direction of the edge to bring it to that shape. It shouldn't take more than a few light strokes. Don't go across because you can snap pieces off of the heel doing that. Ask me how I know. We've all made mistakes. This process gets the stabilizer out of the way by bringing the heel end of the edge further forward and the edge end of the stabilizer back some toward the spine. It's much easier to conceptualize when you see the pictures. With some experience you don't even need the coin you can just do it by eye. From what others are saying that may be the biggest problem you're having. This is all rather academic though since you don't really have enough honing experience to deal with either of these issues yet. It's fine you will but it's a good idea to get at least one other razor that is straight with an even bevel to work with as others have said. That way you're learning with as few complications as possible.
No it's in fact, PM me your address and I'll send you one. If you try to buy one as a beginner you won't know what to look for and if you buy it on eBay you won't know until you get it even if you do. I've got lots of razors and I'm happy to send you one with a good straight spine and edge and an even bevel. I leave in hone it up dead keen for you so that you can see what it needs to be like when it's done. Hopefully you're in North America somewhere.

Hi

I am Glen aka gssixgun

I have now learned I can do a Zoom meeting from the ranch WOOOOOOOhoooo technology

You can watch the JaNorton vids and read the JaNorton thread I did years ago for tones of info

We can't do Meetups right now with the plague but if you want to try some Zoom instruction it is the next best thing..

Fire me a PM and we can set it up

I looked at your Razor pics, it isn't that bad... Really you just need a little help

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Originally Posted by tcrideshd

Oh yea, the best sharpener in town, we hear that all the time, he’s a knife guy so no he ain’t who you want. Just man up and get one of the razor guys here to do it, learn how to strop and shave. Hell till then you don’t even know what a shave ready razor is

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I'm actually not falling for marketing when I say this, the guy actually does not market at all and does all the work silently out of his garage, he has word of mouth recognition around the whole city, I didn't even find out he lived near my until I spoke to someone across my city and he told me to go to him. He legitimately is the best sharpener in the city when it comes to knives and clippers and such, just not so much razors. He's 92 now I think too so he's losing his touch now, probably bad eyesight.

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Originally Posted by gssixgun

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When I get Christmas break I might take you up on this. For now it seems there is so much content to read up on and look at that I should be more than occupied just learning the basics before I really take a shot at this one I have. I'll make sure you watch your videos.

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Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

No it's in fact, PM me your address and I'll send you one. If you try to buy one as a beginner you won't know what to look for and if you buy it on eBay you won't know until you get it even if you do. I've got lots of razors and I'm happy to send you one with a good straight spine and edge and an even bevel. I leave in hone it up dead keen for you so that you can see what it needs to be like when it's done. Hopefully you're in North America somewhere.

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I'm in Winnipeg, Canada, I'll be glad to buy one off of you if the shipping cost isn't super excessive (sometimes shipping costs to Canada from America are unreasonable).

Out of curiosity though, what is really the main point of having the good razor? Just comparison? I can imagine the utility of having a good properly honed razor to look at but I don't really see how I would learn honing technique on a razor that is already in great shape unless I intentionally blunt it or something.

By the way if anyone happens to know a good honer in Winnipeg please point them out to me, I made some phonecalls and put out a craigslist ad looking for one and so far the only person I have heard of is the guy who lives down the block from me (even on badger and blade he's the only one who comes up in my city.

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Managed to upload one of your pics so we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

What Tc was saying is your knife guy maybe the best honer for sharpening knives but that doesn't mean he can hone a razor. Many a razor has been deformed by a knife honer.

Definitely take Glen up on his offer.

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Originally Posted by markbignosekelly

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Managed to upload one of your pics so we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

What Tc was saying is your knife guy maybe the best honer for sharpening knives but that doesn't mean he can hone a razor. Many a razor has been deformed by a knife honer.

Definitely take Glen up on his offer.

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Will do. That bevel looks brutal to me the way the light is bending down the edge of the blade like that. Hopefully I can eventually clean that up.

Image dump incoming. I just realized I have the entire blade stabilizer included sitting on the stone in every single picture where I'm trying to demonstrate the warp of the blade (I don't hone like that though), is it supposed to be sitting flat with the stabilizer or is the stabilizer simply never supposed to touch the hone at all really?

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Just realized I had my thumb on the spine for every single picture of the blade sitting flat too. I'll take some better pictures next time I attempt to hone it.

Theres few razors that will ever sit perfectly flat on the hone, keep the stabilizer off the hone, use a heel forward X stroke, slightly torque the heel edge so it will sit flat on the hone, as you execute the stroke shift the pressure so the toe edge of the razor sits flat on the hone. Dont over think it, It really just comes down to practice. After a few times you'll do it without thinking.

To put yours into perspective heres my R Saito.
It t ain't ever going to sit flat on the hone.

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Originally Posted by markbignosekelly

Theres few razors that will ever sit perfectly flat on the hone, keep the stabilizer off the hone, use a heel forward X stroke, slightly torque the heel edge so it will sit flat on the hone, as you execute the stroke shift the pressure so the toe edge of the razor sits flat on the hone. Dont over think it, It really just comes down to practice. After a few times you'll do it without thinking.

To put yours into perspective heres my R Saito.
It t ain't ever going to sit flat on the hone.

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Bro I thought that was a Salvador Dali painting of a straight razor before I saw that it's real.

Hey OP. Long-time member (mostly lurker) here. I see that gssixgun (Glen) mentioned a Zoom session, so I thought I'd chime in. I have been honing razors for about 10-12 years. I was always able to hone well enough to shave but my results were inconsistent. My best and worst results were mostly accidental. I do not knock this forum specifically but as a general rule I find that forums are not the best places to dissect or solve some of the more complex aspects of any issue. Quite frankly there are people on just about every forum who express opinions as fact about things they may not have even tried. For myself it translated to a lot of background noise and made discerning what parts of the information available were good, better, best… or just wrong. I turned to Glen. We had one Zoom session that lasted less than an hour. I asked basic, direct questions about what I was doing and got no nonsense answers about what was good and what I could throw away. Glen offered me a systematic approach toward evaluating and improving my honing. That one session gave me more than all the years of lurking on forums ever did. Without exaggeration I am now honing with a far better means of evaluating where my edges are and what is required to get them where I want them. I have re-honed my entire collection and turned one mediocre shaver after another into great performers and even revived a couple that I thought were goners. As it turns out I wasn’t that far off. I just needed that professional eye to help cut through the noise and get things on a better track. I really wish a similar opportunity existed when I first started honing. When you seek answers there isn’t really a better alternative than having a direct conversation with someone who is a highly regarded professional in their field.

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Originally Posted by 3QS

\When you seek answers there isn’t really a better alternative than having a direct conversation with someone who is a highly regarded professional in their field.

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Absolutely I'll take him up on that soon. I appreciate everyone's warm welcome here. I like reading too though and will take a few more shots at it myself and read a bunch of stuff before. Reading without practicing doesn't accomplish much especially when people contradict eachother and you aren't sure who to follow, but I've studied a bunch of things like this by myself before (guitar, piano, mathematics, etc) and it is definitely worthwhile to try and fail even with the sometimes bad signal to noise ratio on forums. For what it's worth SRP seems to be extremely consistent compared to a place like Badger and Blade where literally no one agrees about anything and everyone thinks they personally are the master of the craft with the correct opinion, lol.

That was the primary focus of the meets when we were able to have them. Hands on face to face, with questions and answers. I have been to meets with Glen. He is knowledgeable and passionate about honing razors. If you can zoom with him that would be almost as good as in person. There are guys in Canada that hone. I will send you a PM. Winterpeg is a ways away, especially with my mail service.

The offer is a 2 part thing. First and foremost it will give you a problem free razor so that stabilizer problems, spine wear, uneven bevel, blade warp, uneven grind or spine are removed fromm the picture. Second it will be as sharp as you will probably ever get it so that you know what you are aiming for. Additionally it will need to be honed again eventually so the keenness does not defeat the purpose. The intent to buy it is appreciated but the offer was intended to be without strings or obligation. Don't worry about the shipping or purchase. It is an attempt from a member who has been where you are and who has benefited from the help of others to pay it forward and help mentor the next class of students. PM me your address and I'll send it out.
Also, I think you should not overlook stropping properly. You could conceivably be honing properly and then roll the edge stropping which would ruin the shave. There are members here who make and sell strops of good quality for reasonable prices. Heirloom Workshops is one example and the proprietor (Tony Miller) is a member here also.

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Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

The offer is a 2 part thing. First and foremost it will give you a problem free razor so that stabilizer problems, spine wear, uneven bevel, blade warp, uneven grind or spine are removed fromm the picture. Second it will be as sharp as you will probably ever get it so that you know what you are aiming for. Additionally it will need to be honed again eventually so the keenness does not defeat the purpose. The intent to buy it is appreciated but the offer was intended to be without strings or obligation. Don't worry about the shipping or purchase. It is an attempt from a member who has been where you are and who has benefited from the help of others to pay it forward and help mentor the next class of students. PM me your address and I'll send it out.
Also, I think you should not overlook stropping properly. You could conceivably be honing properly and then roll the edge stropping which would ruin the shave. There are members here who make and sell strops of good quality for reasonable prices. Heirloom Workshops is one example and the proprietor (Tony Miller) is a member here also.

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Sounds fantastic, I'll PM you right away, hopefully shipping isn't too unreasonable. I actually already got a really nice $60 Illinois Horse Leather strop a few years ago but unfortunately never got to use it because the razor was never in good enough shape to bother. It bothers me ever cutting the thing so I always try to be conscientious about my stropping technique when I do it. Come Christmas break I'm going to dive right into the research.

Amusing anecdote, a member PM'd me and recommended me a local facebook group for wet-shaving suggesting I might find someone there who is good at honing, or who knows someone who is. Very first recommendation I got when I went there was the guy who lives just down the street from me.

Well let him do it. Facebook is full of experts, and most recommend knife guys cause they don’t have a clue what a straight razor is. But like I’ve said we hear this all the time, and then we hear about the razor being screwed up. But hey it’s your razor do what you want, your not shaving with it anyway

Definitely take Glen up on his offer. He is a master and not graciously receiving that tutelage would be like seeing a stack of $100 bills on the ground and walking by without picking it up.

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Originally Posted by tcrideshd

Well let him do it. Facebook is full of experts, and most recommend knife guys cause they don’t have a clue what a straight razor is. But like I’ve said we hear this all the time, and then we hear about the razor being screwed up. But hey it’s your razor do what you want, your not shaving with it anyway

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Yeah of course, just find it amusing how there is apparently only one well known sharpener in my whole city.

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Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Definitely take Glen up on his offer. He is a master and not graciously receiving that tutelage would be like seeing a stack of $100 bills on the ground and walking by without picking it up.

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Certainly will as soon as I have time.

I managed to track down a local who is skilled at honing straight razors, it only took about 2 years of casual searching, and a tipoff from a straight razor forum to a private facebook group, and then a tipoff from someone there to a local, I'm surprised I actually found someone at all honestly. His name is Joel and I told him about this forum so he will probably put up his own post. No review as of yet but I'll make sure to report back with how it turns out. Still am going to learn how to do all this either way.

There was a wet shaving store in Winterpeg many years ago, and someone honed their razors. I believe the owner was unwell and retired. That there is someone there who hones does not surprise me, that you managed to find them is likely due to tenacity.

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Originally Posted by RezDog

There was a wet shaving store in Winterpeg many years ago, and someone honed their razors. I believe the owner was unwell and retired. That there is someone there who hones does not surprise me, that you managed to find them is likely due to tenacity.

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Exactly. It wouldn't surprise me if there is 20+ people in the city who can hone at a high enough level to do it professionally if they felt like or if there was enough demand for it, but they are either busy or just don't feel like doing it so they are impossible to find. Seems like the man I found just didn't realize how hard it was to find him though, so hopefully in the future it's not as bad.

Welcome aboard. Had the same problem myself. Took a bit but eventually found an old barber to hone my first razor.

Welcome to SRP from a fellow Canadian.

Do you shave with a straight razor? Until you can shave well with one it's useless to try to hone, because you have no idea what you're even trying to achieve.

With the advanced search function on this forum, you can search for members by location. But I also happen to remember that there's a fairly active member here who lives in Winnipeg, Captain Zero or something similar. I remember because there aren't many prairie people on here (I'm originally from Regina). I don't know if he hones professionally, though.

But no matter what, take Glen up on his offer. In fact, I think I'll take a zoom lesson from him soon, too.

I learned to hone from this forum. I would have loved to get in-person lessons, but I could never find any professional honers nearby that honed well enough that I wanted to take lessons from them. 5 years later, I'm finally getting edges that are consistently excellent. I'm certain that if I could have taken one lesson from someone like Glen, it would have taken me a fraction of the time to learn.

Your razor should be able to take a good edge, but you may ruin it trying to learn to hone. I found it very worthwhile to find a bunch of cheap vintage razors in decent condition that I didn't mind ruining for honing practise. Until I could get decent edges on those, I sent out my good razors to pros. Knowing what to look for in an Ebay post is an entirely different set of skills, but much easier to learn than honing.

Good luck! Ask lots of questions, and don't be afraid to make mistakes. They're only razors.

My sharpener seems to have a done a pretty bang up job, perfect looking straight edge all the way down on both sides, still cut myself a few times shaving with it (narrow face with sharp chin, it's difficult) but it's at least a few times better than before. Would recommend to anyone locally who needs one sharpened.

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If you are new to it, there is no shame in keeping a regular razor for the lips and chin while you learn the straight on the cheeks and neck. I cheated, I started when I had a van dyke.

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Originally Posted by planeden

If you are new to it, there is no shame in keeping a regular razor for the lips and chin while you learn the straight on the cheeks and neck. I cheated, I started when I had a van dyke.

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I mean I could but I don't see a point, gotta learn the angles eventually. I have a narrow neck with a punch of little dips and curves so I have to switch hands multiple times for various parts of each side of my neck/face, I'll get it down eventually.

Looks as if he honed it with the toe off the stone, creating a lot of wear at the heal, almost leaving a spur as well as getting into the stabilizer.

Maybe its just me.

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Originally Posted by outback

Looks as if he honed it with the toe off the stone, creating a lot of wear at the heal, almost leaving a spur as well as getting into the stabilizer.

Maybe its just me.

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Probably just bad lighting, it has an even wear all the way down the spine. There certainly is a lot of wear there now, but I figure that was probably somewhat necessary to get the warp out of it from the factory. I'll post more pictures later on that show all the different angles with better lighting so you guys can look at it.

Yes, I see the hone wear on the spine, but I'm looking at the bevel. Not that I don't have razors, that hone up like that, due to uneven grinding, or a warp. I'm just going by what I see now, from your very first pic of the razor.

Could just be lighting, as u say. :shrug:

Just saying...you might have to correct the heal, the next time it needs honed