Thread: Need info on decent but cheap equipment

Originally Posted by Swerve

That site is kind of hard to navigate does anyone have any suggestions about their blind deals?

You must be talking about whippeddog.com? The blind deals are pretty much what they say they are, not pretty by any stretch for the most part, but cleaned and sharpened to shave ready status. I got one from him and it's a good shaver though a little narrow... Not even sure if it's a 4/8, it's an old Spike raozor (I think from the 50's?).

Your best bet with Whippeddog is to send Larry an email, he's a super guy and very helpful! I think he's on semi holidays right now, but he usually answers pretty quickly. I just bought one of his DE's that he started carrying and I love it! Seems to be really good quality for the price. I will definitely buy from him again



Cheers,
Stew

Edit: Oops, missed page 2 of the thread! Lol, most of what I have said was already mentioned. I was also going to suggest the classifieds on this site, I've bought two straights through the classifieds and they were both excellent deals IMHO.

Another question I have is what should a person look for in a good all around strop? Ex: soft surface - hard surface, same color throughout the leather - light colored leather with dark surface, and also while rubbing hand on strop to provide oil for strop should it feel like it has harder spots in it. Is there anything you can do to fix these problems?

I've heard nothing but good things about WhippedDog. I can also offer positive feedback for StarShaving.com; I've ordered from him before, and he caters to beginner straight shavers.

You'll hear a lot of varying feedback on the Chinese Gold Dollar razors, good and bad. You can find them from reputable sellers for less than $20. I own one, and it shaves quite well. (Had to hone it first, however. You'd have to shell out probably another $15-20 for honing.)

Good luck!

Thank you to everyone who has helped me through the begining of straight shaving and supplies. You all have been extremely helpfull

Just because it does need to be said, you are welcome. And once more, welcome aboard.

I purchased a dovo for my first shaver, and after some reading through the forums here I decided to check out the GD for 11.99 and here's what I've seen. I had to grind a little on the stabilizers, grind or file the blade straight, it was smiling, then hone it from a 220 grit hone all the way through a 12k hone. Hit it with a paxdle strop with chromium oxide, then strop with pasted strop and then regular strop, then tried hanging hair test and it did wonderfully. Haven't shaved with it yet though so we'll see n I will post again. But its a model 66 gold dollar from star shaving dot com. Also I will have to rescale it the factories are total junk.

Actually a really good shave. In fact I like the 6/8 width of the gold dollar over the 5/8 width of the dovo. Ill make shure my next razor is a 6/8 or bigger dovo to make shure its not just the extra shaving surface coverage that maxe the difference to me. So in my opinion the 11.99 was well worth it and probably the biggest shocker since I started straight shaving, but I dont mind putting in the extra work. Its probably not a good deal for a beginer though. Furthermore the reason I am as successful at honing and stopping is that for over 10 years or better I haavent met or been arround anyone who can sharpen a knife as well as me so its just a natural gift I guess.

Originally Posted by Swerve

. . . Its probably not a good deal for a beginner though.

That's putting it mildly!<g>

Charles

You could try what I did. learn About razors through reading and what is popular on ebay and on this forum. It wont take long before you know what to look for in a razor. Then go hunting at antique stores for those razors. Make sure the back spine is straight, the blade isn't twisted, and there's lots of blade left on the razor itself. ( not over honed.) Its become so addicting for me that I need to find more and more stores!!! I ended up by finding an old W&B for $15. All it needed was some rust removed, some polishing, and a good hone and the razor has just been awesome!