Thread: Hone of the Day

I just honed a £60 Dovo for a customer, he purchased it on Amazon . The craftsmanship was horrific , silly grind, the middle of the edge wouldn't touch the hone and it bangs into the cheap nasty scales on opening. & it squeaks :/
I gave it a nice edge but had to take one side of the heel down.

I think quantity and quality dont really mix.

Originally Posted by JOB15

I just honed a £60 Dovo for a customer, he purchased it on Amazon . The craftsmanship was horrific , silly grind, the middle of the edge wouldn't touch the hone and it bangs into the cheap nasty scales on opening. & it squeaks :/
I gave it a nice edge but had to take one side of the heel down.

I think quantity and quality dont really mix.

You know if I were Dovo and saw a post like this after a discussion of Gold Dollar quality, I’d have to be a little concerned.

There was/is a vendor who touts those ‘master Solingen grinders/honers’ and how much better they are than mere forum folk, but when I see posts like this, and there are MANY, I have to wonder where those Solingen masters are that he talks so much about.

Originally Posted by alex1921

It would be interesting to see where GD's are in 2020. The above thread is 10 years old. Maybe the manufacturer evolved and improved.
Like others have said they take an edge, honed few on a Jnat and they shaved pretty well. Unfortunately can't speak to longevity of the edge since I rarely shave more than few times with an edge before trying a different stone.

Yes, you would hope things have improved over the intervening years. Unfortunately once you have earned a bad reputation it is hard to overcome it. There are plenty of threads on Gold Dollars if you use the forum search box. I suspect if you were to go through them you'd find a dearth of praise for Gold Dollars even more recently.

Bob

Originally Posted by Steve56

You know if I were Dovo and saw a post like this after a discussion of Gold Dollar quality, I’d have to be a little concerned.

There was/is a vendor who touts those ‘master Solingen grinders/honers’ and how much better they are than mere forum folk, but when I see posts like this, and there are MANY, I have to wonder where those Solingen masters are that he talks so much about.

A bit off topic- but here's how modern Dovo razors are made--while all of the steps aren't included, it's pretty much from start to finish.

Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors

I could start a pass-around, if it isn't against the rules. I have plenty and they only cost me $3.71 each.

PM a mod if you want to do this. Usually any sort of initiatives have to go thru admin.

One thing to consider tho is that it will only showcase your skills as a restorer/honer rather than give an overall view on build quality for 2020 GD's

Thanks cudarunner, that’s always a fun video to watch. To be fair, I’m sure that Dovo does have some very good people grinding razors, yet they manage to release a large percentage of razors that like JOB15’s razor, are overground in the middle and won’t hone on a flat stone. Here’s an example. At first, I honed a little more to see if the overground middle would clear, but it would not, it’s overground well up into the hollow. But only on the pile side, the other side is well ground. I honed it using the corner of a hone to ride into the overground area. That’s why there’s a bevel there.

If you watch the video from say 4:15-4:25, seeing the grinder inserting the blade between the wheels, ask yourself ‘What part of the blade spends the most time on the wheels?’ Not the heel, that’s spending about 50% of the time off the wheel. I cam’t see the nose, but the middle of the blade is constantly in contact with the wheel. I suspect that if you don’t compensate for that, you’ll get an overground middle. Which is exactly what you see below. Reminds me of honing to a frown that Glen mentions, if you don’t bias the wear a little to the toe and heel, you’ll grind too much in the middle.

The grinder can apparently compensate for it, there are many well-ground modern Dovos, I have a couple. And a well ground Bismark is a thing of joy, especially in better scales. But a 30% chance of getting a dog is too high if the company and vendors don’t support returns of badly ground razors.

A friend and fellow member asked me if I'd be interested in going together to buy new Revisor razors. He's really good in business but doesn't trust credit cards but I do so off we go.

He wanted a fancy one with gold wash but I wanted a plain jane as the gold wash doesn't help the razor shave better and it will eventually go away. Revisor said that it would be two weeks until they had another run of the razor I wanted and I told my friend that if it was OK with him, I could wait and they could ship the razors together and he agreed.Lo and behold he got an email saying that they had decided to have the crew work on the following weekend and they would be shipping both razors in a few days instead of a couple of weeks.

The razors were sent my my friend and he honed mine and sent it along. However the razor he received had a bad warp in it so he contacted the company and they said to ship it back for inspection which he did.

So it can happen to any company--kind of like the occasional automotive 'Lemon'.

I've seen plenty of rough dovos and tis to boot. These run 100 bucks or more although I haven't checked lately. Maybe they should have made a thread called "about tis and dovos" lol. I call a spade a spade. But to compare a gd that can be had for $4 or so to a razor that costs 25 times as much never made sense to me. That dovo in Steve's post requires a lot of work to get a bevel in the center in that side. No cake walk there for sure.

Originally Posted by cudarunner

So it can happen to any company--kind of like the occasional automotive 'Lemon'.

Yup. You'll see "Friday arvo" razors even in respected vintages. It's the frequency that's important.

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