Thread: If you were going to make a production razor...

Originally Posted by RobinK

No, Bob, you don't need talent, you need skills acquired through years of training. Talent is entirely optional. And in order to receive the required training, you need a trainer. And I don't mean mentoring over the internet, but a dual vocational training system.

And you don't have those people or that system. So you will not be able to produce to the same quality standards.

Which, as Bruno blithely put it, need not necessarily be a disadvantage. Unless you try to compete with German products.

And Bruno is right about something else, too: You will not be able to recruit a member of generation Y for such a menial job. Especially if you cannot use the qualification and training acquired elsewhere.

Yes, "talent" was a poor word choice and "skill" would have been better and was what I had meant. You are also correct that the skill can only be gotten through a long and rigorous apprenticeship program only if you have the talent to be trained. I bet even in the old days quite a few did not "cut the mustard" and were relegated to less tasks.

No such apprentice programs exist here and are never likely to happen as it has virtually no appeal to the current generation being a menial job with no other application. You are quite right there.

Bruno is also correct in that if you want to settle for heavier grinds that is entirely possible to find plenty of those types of blades relatively speaking. Again "settle" may be a bad choice of words as the heavier grinds shave as well as anything else. OTH if you prefer full hollow, extra hollow or bellied blades you are pretty well limited in choice at a reasonable price point.

We live in different times making some thing nearly impossible to re create and if you can re create them there is generally a high price point which most would not pay.

Bob

Originally Posted by RobinK

Actually, I can think of exactly two: Wacker (on a good day), and Revisor. Aust could probably do it, because he's got the skills and tools, but he doesn't make them, I think. And that's that. I have yet to see any custom razor that comes anywhere close - because they don't have the tools and therefore lack the skills.

And if you ever manage to pick up a Peres Reina or a Mehl Spezial, you will realise what truly qualified craftsmen were able to do back then. Hint: those razors make one of the fabled Filarmonica razors look like an amateur job.

No argument there. That is why I stick to vintage when I can find them. As to "fabled" Fillis call me a peasant. I have one and it shaves as well as other vintage makes I have with similar grind.

Bob

Originally Posted by BobH

As to "fabled" Fillis call me a peasant. I have one and it shaves as well as other vintage makes I have with similar grind.

Spot on. However, the Filli Feeding Frenzy highlights another obstacle if you want to establish yourself as a razor maker: Hype. Or, to be fair, recognition.

We have already established that in order to start a razor manufacture capable of producing larger quantities, you would need a sizeable up front investment, and hit the ground running.

But where will you get buyers? In forums, it's all too easy to forget that we're seeing the business through a filter bubble. People get their information elsewhere (mostly) these days. So you will have to play with social media, and that takes a lot of time and energy. Alternatively, you can go down the route of a certain soap mongering outfit, but that is both unethical and dangerous.

So, where do you get buyers? Aust and Revisor were in business for years before they were able to sell significant numbers. How would you fund such a venture?

Originally Posted by RobinK

Spot on. However, the Filli Feeding Frenzy highlights another obstacle if you want to establish yourself as a razor maker: Hype. Or, to be fair, recognition.

We have already established that in order to start a razor manufacture capable of producing larger quantities, you would need a sizeable up front investment, and hit the ground running.

But where will you get buyers? In forums, it's all too easy to forget that we're seeing the business through a filter bubble. People get their information elsewhere (mostly) these days. So you will have to play with social media, and that takes a lot of time and energy. Alternatively, you can go down the route of a certain soap mongering outfit, but that is both unethical and dangerous.

So, where do you get buyers? Aust and Revisor were in business for years before they were able to sell significant numbers. How would you fund such a venture?

Totally agree forum members live in a skewed universe where they think there is this tremendous market that actually is not there. Revisor maybe has maybe 3000 in inventory. Aust is similar and Wacker probably less. Yet you can buy any of these at the drop of a hat. Dovo and Thiers are larger and lucky that they have support from AOS for large allocations. Both have still curtailed and streamlined their product lines and discoed quite a few models.

Straight shaving is still a very small niche market dominated by collectors and repeat customers. Similar to the slip joint pocket knife market. Some small knife makers have still hung on due to the collectors who own 2 to 3 hundred, buy one or two a month and the LE models when released.

You need a huge market where men will buy one straight every couple of years to really get any bang for your buck to offset the huge start up costs to make moderate cost high quality straights crafted in the traditional manner at a sustainable volume.

I want to thank everyone for contributing to this thread, it's been a fascinating read!

If anyone was curious (as I was) for some more info on the blanks mentioned above and the process of Pließten here area a few links.

Pließten: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plie%C3%9Ften

http://www.hugo-herkenrath.de/en/raz...e=rasiermesser

C'mon Matt, this is a subforum for advanced, or even Wizard type kinda, users. We all know what pließten is. Or who made those #14 blanks...

Originally Posted by RobinK

C'mon Matt, this is a subforum for advanced, or even Wizard type kinda, users. We all know what pließten is. Or who made those #14 blanks...

Erm... I didn't... but now I do

Originally Posted by RobinK

C'mon Matt, this is a subforum for advanced, or even Wizard type kinda, users. We all know what pließten is. Or who made those #14 blanks...

Hmmm, I'm sure I have a wizard hat around here somewhere...

Some random thoughts:

1) The qualification system still exists in some forms in many professions. In Germany they still carry the old titles. And in most countries, professional titles such as lawyer, architect, etc are protected (Sadly, Engineer is not). You know it costs a lot of time and effort (and possibly money) to attain them, but in return you get better jobs and higher pay. The skill of people like Ralf Aust is testament to the fact that the system used to work for them. The problem is that these days, both society and industry don't reward Meister cutlery skills anymore. So what do you have when putting up with years and years of investment? A meister title and a life of menial hand labour making simple mechanical tools and competing with mass production for low wages.

2) even if people were willing to become apprentice, there is no room in the industry. Robin mentioned spending years doing nothing but polishing before moving on to the next step. But you need many apprentices, and an industry where their work is taken into the production chain. There is no industry left where any significant amount of hand labor is involved that you can meaningfully have apprentices churn out thousands of blades per month. Mass market handmade cutlery is a dead industry. Back in the olden days, the smelters would create steel, smiths created hundreds of blanks per day, grinders ground hundreds of blanks per day, cutlers would fix scales and handles, etc. You can't revive 1 craft without reviving the entire industry in high volume.

3) PRC only works because they have the appeal of 'Made in America' they have a market share just because of that. Not because they are better than dovo or more competitively priced.

4) But suppose you want to start competing in value for money. Great, but the market is only so big. Getting an influx of a couple thousand razors per month will drop market prices, lowering profits significantly. This means a race to the bottom against dovo, which has much better skills and the best resources in existence for mass market razor making. They can run you in the ground with low margins, and then simply increase their margins again next quarter when your company is dead. The only way in which you could survive is in a rapidly expanding market.

Originally Posted by Bruno

1) The qualification system still exists in some forms in many professions. In Germany they still carry the old titles.

They do not. But worse than that, the dual educational system is going down the drain, too. This lack of on-the-job training might work if you want to whack together gluten free apps for uncouth generation Y types. But it will kill the industry as we know it soonishly.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Great, but the market is only so big

It depends on how good you are at building a niche market. I remember that some years ago, we were discussing the subtle differences between mass produced creams (anything made by Creightons, including the TOBS, Trumper's and so on) vs vs manufactured creams (Baume.be, Castle Forbes.

Today, social media - and, by association, this forum - are being flooded by shills, sycophants, and ignorami extolling the virtues of cheap shite made either in China, or made from Chinese import base products.

We shouldn't even be having a "discussion" of Shavemac/Rooney/Thäter vs The Golden Nib (TGN) or anything like that.

We should laugh away the Gold Dollar/Whipped Dog brigade with their plebeian "it looks like a razor, only, like, it don't really work" razor shaped objects.

We should permanently ban everyone even mentioning anything made by How to Grow a Moustache, Petal Pusher Fancies, Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements, or whatever their latest camo is.

We really should.

Because they sell cheap shite.

Because they piss on a tradition that is hundreds of years old.

For profit.

But we don't.

And this, gentlemen, is why a new company, any new company, which wants to sell high quality razors will fail. Because we never stood up against cheap shite. And we should be ashamed of ourselves for that.