Thread: How bad would this be...

How bad would a brand new Dovo Micarta be directly from the factory without further honing?

It would be great! Just shave with it right when you get it, with little to no beard prep. This will give you a great appreciation for both a sharp razor and a good beard prep. I'd personally suggest spending less money on a quality razor from the classifieds. For a hundred bucks you can get some seriously sweet razors.

For the price of one pre-honed Dovo micarta from classic I bought 29 straight razors from an old barber who had kept them in shadow boxes as decorations. I also got two barber hones, a strop, and an old brush in the deal.

As an actual answer to you question, you'll probably be pretty disappointed in the shave quality straight from the factory.

pretty bad to ok. Its random luck.

Lol thanks for the answer...

I know Dovos are supposed to go through some sort of sharpening process at the plant but probably not enough to make it shave ready.

I think I got the whole beard prep going okay.

yeah, it's a gamble and if you don't have any other benchmark for sharp razor I'd suggest you don't start with this one. The 105 blades do get very sharp, though, but probably not at the factory.

Comment from my local shop: "Dovo has made great progress with respect to quality assurance over the last three years. Current razors do come shave ready, only need to be stropped." The guy said that while unpacking about 200 of them, so he has some benchmark data.

That said, if I could turn back time, I had rather invest the money for my first two new razors into a Norton 4/8k, a pasted strop and a fistful of entry level razors from the Classifieds. In the long run, this is a much better deal. Your mileage may vary, of course.

I wouldn't try it. If this would be your first time shaving (you've not mentioned whether you've been straight shaving or not) you'll see most of the advice directing to the classifieds. It's the cheapest, surest way to get a good razor, and by cheap I don't mean junk, I mean the items are sold at a price that is more for helping guys get good razors/shaves than putting money in a wallet. At least that the sum of everything I've found through my purchases.

I'm totally new to this (I've been using a DE for about 2 months now). I already some razors from the classifieds coming in. I can get the Dovo from a seller here in Canada which would avoid all of customs issues. Unfortunately the razors he's selling are not honed before being shipped. Plus with our poor little Canadian dollar taking a big plunge doesn't help either.

The other side of the coin my #105 came pretty close to shave ready (shear luck) it also is still my absolute sharpest razor to date (I have quite a few) it however is not my best shaver but it's up there.... If it does need honing you might wanna contact Floppyshoes/Dan he is in Canada....

It's too bad I can't get anything locally. I'm from a relatively small town in Canada. I wish I could just walk down the street and get someone to hone my razor but unfortunately that isn't the case.