Thread: Sharpening My First Gold Dollar Razor

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Use TAPE !!!

Until you can hone without putting any wear on the tape then do as you please

In fact you might try 2 layers of 3M 77 on that GD

Why?? Because new honers have issues with adjusting torque vs pressure which leads to "Chasing the edge" where you are creating wear on the spine equal to wear at the edge and just spinning your wheels

Hmm I expected something like that might be at play. I didn't realize that I forgot the tape until quite late into this hone, I normally always use tape. Good call, friend. Also noted to be watching the water.

edit: aha I was just about to mention, "the kind fellow who gave me the video instruction I think told me this" before realizing that it was you. Thanks again for the lesson! Sorry I didn't take thorough notes at the time.

Sorry to break it to you this way, "You just can't make silk out of a pigs ear!" Good luck to you though.

It is hard to get it all working at the same time

I promise once it happens this big bright light will come on above your head and you will say "Ahhhhh now it all makes sense"

Originally Posted by Johntoad57

Sorry to break it to you this way, "You just can't make silk out of a pigs ear!" Good luck to you though.

Very true, but that pig's ear can indeed be made to shave just fine, with a bit of hard work and a skill set that honestly you don't get from honing only the silk razors. Sometimes it's not the bow, it's the Indian. I have included GD's in my usual rotation for many years now.

You are correct, a GD will never be a prince among razors and the factory will never make what we would regard as a premium razor. They don't care to do so, and they don't know how, either, but they can make a budget ugly duckling that will gitter done, if you can figure out how to hone it.

Sounds like you are shaving with a burr.

It also seems like you are mixing and matching techniques and instructions from multiple honemeisters, as well as freestyling it on your own.

Here is the way forward.

Find a honemeister who can turn out a great edge not on just a "nice" razor, but on GD as well. That man has your recipe. What he has learned, you can learn, too. Accept his methods, his techniques, his tool and material choices, his dogma, his irrelevant good luck charms and incantations, everything, however unnecessary or unimportant the details might seem. Duplicate precisely what he does, without fail, without substitution or omission or addition. Perfectly copy what he does and how he does it. Then, when you do everything correctly, EVERYTHING, you will have... the same edge he gets. Sure I like to tell guys do it my way. But if you can't or won't do it my way in every detail, I would rather you did it somebody else's way perfectly in every detail. Either way, you will get your edge. And everybody does it differently. Just don't freestyle, not yet.

There are some universal truths that hold true with any honing style. Mainly that the bevel is key. The bevel needs to be of appropriate angle, first of all. The GD is already a pretty hefty bevel so you do not want to increase that angle. The two faces must intersect cleanly and form a good apex along the entire length of the shaving edge, Usually with this razor, that means getting rid of the stabilizer or mitigating it in some fashion, as it will elevate the heel while honing. The blade of the GD often has significant twist, or misalignment between spine and edge, though not as much as some entry level Dovos I have had the misfortune to own. Significant pressure on coarse stones is needed to begin the process with a crudely ground razor, but at the same time, as the bevel develops and you get a nice thin edge, the Chinese steel even more than European or American steel, will flex, and pressure deflects that thin and flexible edge upward. The honing effort is then going to a region BEHIND the edge, thinning that part more than it should, causing greater upward flex of the edge, and the whole thing snowballs and you end up with a really bad fin edge. So, pressure must be gradually regulated. Honing a razor with synthetics is a progressive endeavor, using a series of stones or films or other media, and no step should be started until the previous one is absolutely complete.

Those basic ideas will be incorporated into nearly any successful honing regimen. You have received enough differing thoughts and advice already so I will not muddy the waters with details, but I will say this, and it holds true regardless of the honing dogma that you adopt. LOOK, REALLY LOOK at the bevel and at the edge, and learn to understand what you are seeing. The bevel is not just at the edge, either. The bevel plane stretches back over the spine and into infinity. So study the spine as well as what you normally think of as the bevel. Get a REALLY bright work light, and a good magnifying device, and though the price is getting outrageous, I still strongly recommend the Belomo 10x Triplet loupe. The focal length is much longer than most similar instruments, so there is less risk of contact with the edge. It has excellent light gathering ability and low distortion. The field width and magnification are just about right. It doesn't have an LED light because it doesn't need one.

The bevel faces are important, but mostly because to have a smooth edge, they must be smooth, too, and intersect cleanly. The bright working light is important, because it is the reflections that you are really looking for, how they travel across the surface when you gently roll the razor. The true goal of course is that invisible edge, free of burr and dings. Watch the light. Watch the reflections. Hear what they are telling you.

Gold Dollars are not the only razors that can benefit by removal or modification of an intrusive stabilizer. Someone on here posted some good pics on how to best make the stabilizer disappear but I don't remember who. Myself, I sometimes go so far with this as to leave a thumb notch where the stabilizer used to be. It really does make setting the bevel much easier.

Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors

Very true, but that pig's ear can indeed be made to shave just fine, with a bit of hard work and a skill set that honestly you don't get from honing only the silk razors. Sometimes it's not the bow, it's the Indian. I have included GD's in my usual rotation for many years now.

You are correct, a GD will never be a prince among razors and the factory will never make what we would regard as a premium razor. They don't care to do so, and they don't know how, either, but they can make a budget ugly duckling that will gitter done, if you can figure out how to hone it.

You are correct! You can make it work (if you know how), but the effort to make it work is sometimes too much. Especially when you can just spend a little bit more for silk instead of pigs ears! But, to each their own. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Well, I personally palm hold the stone and one hand hone. Everyone has their own way but that is how I feel more in control of the blade. Using this method lets say the heel end of the edge sits up. At the biginning of the stroke I lean the blade back lifting the toe end slightly to make tthe heel end sit down. Then through the stroke "rock" it back so the toe end sits flat.

As to your question about a default. I don't know that there really is one default stroke as each blade is slightly different.

Indeed. I also hone in hand. The only time I bench hone is when I am removing a LOT of steel, because honing with heavy pressure is less fatiguing on the bench. As soon as I get up into the 600 grit or finer range, I am honing in hand.

Rather than rolling a smiley razor, I simply let the stone roll in my hand. I get more consistency from heel to toe that way.

Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors

Indeed. I also hone in hand. The only time I bench hone is when I am removing a LOT of steel, because honing with heavy pressure is less fatiguing on the bench. As soon as I get up into the 600 grit or finer range, I am honing in hand.

Rather than rolling a smiley razor, I simply let the stone roll in my hand. I get more consistency from heel to toe that way.

Referencing both of your posts at the same time here: The best reference blade I have is actually from PaulFLUS, present in this thread, and I am indeed trying to follow his technique, to the letter, to the best of my understanding. I'm intentionally trying not to mix in ideas or techniques from other honers, though I may unconsciously do so.

I do have the Belomo loupe and it is indeed gorgeous, one of my favorite possessions tbh, it's just so fun to observe things with it! I do not have the eye to understand the qualities of what I'm looking at though.

Unfortunately it is true that low end DOVOs are worse than many gold dollar razors, I know from experience even being as novice as I am, because a bad dovo is what got me into this in the first place...

If you can track down the post detailing how to deal with the stabilizer, I'm happy to try it. I have the tools I think, but definitely not the knowledge.

I suppose it may make the most sense to follow gssixgun's videos if I am to follow one method from start to finish religiously, as he seems to have the most video content, which is surely easier to follow for such a visual process, compared to words.

Q: When you're rolling the stone in your hand, are you taking note of the unevenness of the blade, and deliberately rolling the stone to compensate for that, or have you developed a technique which seems to keep the blade touching the stone correctly in an automatic sort of way?

Originally Posted by rickytimothy

Referencing both of your posts at the same time here: The best reference blade I have is actually from PaulFLUS, present in this thread, and I am indeed trying to follow his technique, to the letter, to the best of my understanding. I'm intentionally trying not to mix in ideas or techniques from other honers, though I may unconsciously do so.

I do have the Belomo loupe and it is indeed gorgeous, one of my favorite possessions tbh, it's just so fun to observe things with it! I do not have the eye to understand the qualities of what I'm looking at though.

Unfortunately it is true that low end DOVOs are worse than many gold dollar razors, I know from experience even being as novice as I am, because a bad dovo is what got me into this in the first place...

If you can track down the post detailing how to deal with the stabilizer, I'm happy to try it. I have the tools I think, but definitely not the knowledge.

I suppose it may make the most sense to follow gssixgun's videos if I am to follow one method from start to finish religiously, as he seems to have the most video content, which is surely easier to follow for such a visual process, compared to words.

Q: When you're rolling the stone in your hand, are you taking note of the unevenness of the blade, and deliberately rolling the stone to compensate for that, or have you developed a technique which seems to keep the blade touching the stone correctly in an automatic sort of way?

As the razor travels across as well as along the stone, the pressure vector also of course moves across the stone, and without making any effort to control the axial alignment of the stone, in other words held loosely and not firmly, the roll is more or less natural. You do have to bias the stone slightly, because at no time is the blade pressing down on the stone along the far edge alone, but as the razor is drawn across the stone there is pressure at only the near edge, as the blade end approaches the edge of the stone.

This is probably a bit much for you to process and I know my explanation is not very clear. My comment was mostly aimed at Paul and not meant to be a suggestion to you. So again, stick with one guru regarding technique.

Gssixgun has taught a lot of guys how to hone and you could certainly do worse, for a guru. Paul is well known, as well.

For the stabilizer-ectomy, I usually sort of eyeball it, but the method I am referencing uses a coin as a template to mark a radius with a sharpie, which is the line to grind to.

Here is an extreme example of a modified Gold Dollar. I did a lot of these about 15 years ago and my grinder was a Black and Decker "Dragster" belt sander, upside down, clamped in the vise, with the nose guard removed so I could use the nose roller to make concave radii. I also used a Dremel and sanding drums a lot. Anyway, look where the stabilizer was. It isn't there anymore. The coin method gives you a convex radius at the heel rather than the concave one.


Re: entry level Dovo razors... one thing to remember is the steel is the same for all of their non specialized razors and it is rather good, well hardened and tempered maybe a bit on the hard side. When you are willing to do what you gotta do to make it shave even if you end up with a not so pretty razor, you CAN make all but the worst of them shave okay. But the GD have less twist, usually, and the softer steel makes bevel setting much easier. The nicer Dovos I rather like, and I have several Dovo Bismarcks and others based on the same blank, and I think those are excellent.

Still looking for the style of stabilizer correction I am talking about but here is another pic I found of a modded GD66 that might show the thumb notchery a little more clearly.

Sorry, I guess I missed this before. A couple of things here.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

...ps: I am NOT a believer in the "Burr Method" it works, but it is not conducive to a Comfortable edge, it is a fast dirty fix to getting to a bevel set

I actually am not either. BUT, and I think I said this at the beginning, it will get you there following that process. If it is just not happening and you are having a problem getting there or can't tell when you are there it is kind of the bigger hammer or dumb end of the stick method so that if you watch and pay attentiin along the way you can learn to recognize it.

Originally Posted by rickytimothy

I just spent a good couple hours taking another shot at this razor, according to your written instructions (to the best of my ability,

My results were not good, so here are some followup questions:

Q: Before the jointing step, when I am alternating the burr by doing half x-strokes, is the idea that the burr that pressure is supposed to be coming down, and the burr itself is also supposed to be getting smaller and less noticeable?

note: I could not get it to come down to less than 3 half-x strokes per burr, without using what felt like very heavy pressure, I tried 15-20 times. With light pressure, there would either be a very very minor burr relative to the beginning steps, and even then it would take at least 5-10 strokes to get anything going.

Wait! Are you saying you are trying to create a bur repeatedly? Because that is NOT what I meant. The object, and sorry if that was not clear enough, is to 1)create a bur on one side.2) create a bur on the other. THEN get rid of the bur. The successively diminishing half x strokes after the bur on the second side is to remove the bur and stabilize the apex along the edge. The diminishing full x strokes and diminishing pressure after that is to clean up and finalize a clean and complete bevel.

From what I think you said it sounds like you are cranking on the blade getting to a bur with less strokes. If that's the case you will never get a clean bevel. you do not want a bur. Acheiving the bur is just a blind man's method to creating a pronounced plane of the hone grind along the edge then doing it again on the other side. The bur just tells you you've done that. After that has been acheived the bur is bad joojoo and must be irradicated.

As to your question about how to see the sparklys, a lighted loop is probably the best way. I have one of those nerdy looking visors with the stacked lenses. It has a light on the top and works prettywell. Plus it makes you super attractive to your hon-ney.