Quote Originally Posted by BKratchmer View Post
My thoughts are very similar to Glen's, but I would perhaps qualify it as such : There is some obligation to support an artisan. In that sense, some of the old grinders who I've heard still work for DOVO or maybe most of all the young guy's who are just learning to make those Hart razors (and, based on the reviews, do seem to be learning the craft quite earnestly).

I don't see any obligation to support a factory worker who would just as soon be making a fork. TI, for example, uses their history as grand cutlers to sell their blades at outrageous prices... they may as well have trained apes grinding their blades, and most significantly scaling their razors.

On a barely related note, I had been thinking about the trouble with TI (and to some extent DOVO) scales. Essentially they sell all the same blades, just different scales.... and from what I've seen, the price just isn't worth it for the scales. I'm not as good as Glen or Max, but I filled out one of my invoices as though I used a tropical hardwood to rescale a new bottom-end DOVO (the blade in no-frills scales) and I could give a person a gosh-darned NEW razor with hand-made scales of far higher quality than the factory ever produces for about $100 less than their top models.


And as much as I want to see new razors being made, I don't want to support *that*.
My TI is similar to Glen's , its spartacus not Eagle, and the scales were just fine. I got the bone scale version not stamina because it was out of stock.
You can't just generalize for the whole production based on one example. I can say the same about Dovo, my first and only one was a disappointment and will never buy another. My experience still does not mean all Dovos are bad.
By the way, my TI and Glen's and many others are made from historic steel which much better than what current forgings can offer. I am not sure that TI and Dovo use the same steel, TI as far as I know has a new formula they started to use recently.