Thread: Clauss v. Boker

Picked up a nice 6/8 Clauss this weekend. It looked great, no hone wear, no rust, yada yada. The only problem was that it looks like the original owner ran the edge against the sink and put a bunch of jaggies all through the bevel and then tossed it into a drawer for 100 years.

I ran the razor through it's paces starting at 1k until all the jaggies were honed completely out and established a new bevel. Ran through the 3k, 8k, and PHIG stones without problem. HHT test fails (or shows mediocre results). Shave test was...mediocre at best. Several more days of testing and running through the hones have gained me nothing.

Today, I compared the edges of the Clauss against that of a vintage Boker and at 60x they are comparable. However, at 100x, the edges show considerable differences. The Boker is still super clean and smooth throughout the bevel, but the Clauss has nearly microscopic chipping that I can only accredit to it's mediocre shaving results.

Do Clauss owners have any advice? I've got another Clauss that shaves exactly like this one. I don't know...maybe it's unfair to compare the two razors.

I can offer this for you: I have been attempting to hone a Clauss into shave ready condition and have gotten poor results, mostly because of
my lousy honing skills. Also, however, my blade has pitting near the edge, and from time to time during my honing those pits have shown up in micro-chips in the edge itself. I don't know if this has anything to do with your issues. I hope you're a better honer than I am.

I have a Clauss I got from Sham and one I picked up on ebay and they are both excellent shavers. I put them right up there with the best of the razors I own including Wackers, Double Ducks, Fillys, W&Bs, Wostenholms, Bokers, Henckels, etc. You might want to reach out to Sham as I can testify that he can put a great edge on a Clauss.

Something wrong with your blade. you may overhoned it or edge has been deteriorate etc.
try to set bevel again and sharpen see what happens. idea is remove a little more steel.
Clauss is very good blade.

I have a bunch of Clauss razors and they shave great! I can't tell you what you need to do w/o being there in person, but I would change something in your honing technique. I don't move off the bevel setting hone until the razor cleanly cuts arm hairs at skin level so that they just drop in place. Then I move up the hones. I also do circles to get the metal off and then finish with ~ 10 laps, check arm hair cuts and proceed as the test results determine.

I would forget the HHT.

Can you post pictures of the Clauss razors in question? It'd be nice to look at them and see what is going on if we can.

I only have one Clauss from ebay, it was very nice condition. I couldn't get it to hone at all, I tried for a few days, this was months ago.

I sent it to Sham (hi_bud_gl) and he was able to hone it but told me the temper was messed up from someone buffing the blade to make it look nice again. He had to hone some metal down to find good steel.

Just food for thought and from what I can tell Clauss is made from hard US steel so it takes more time than a Solingen blade for example.

UPDATE: Wanted to drop a line to let you know how things had progressed. I started thinking about Glen saying a while ago that most folks believe that they've OVER honed when they've actually UNDER honed. Between that and the fact that Clauss used very hard steel, it go me thinking that maybe I could focus on refining the edge a bit more.

I pulled out the 8k and did 50 laps and checked it under the microscope at 100x and noticed that the edge was refining a bit and that the scratch pattern was thinning out a bit. 50 more laps and noticed that the edge was getting even better. After the third set of 50 laps, nearly all of the scratches were pulled out of the bevel. 100 laps on the PHIG and a good stropping and I can now report that they edge gives a great shave...not perfect compared to my other blades...but it's now within the reach of dialing it in for a perfect shave.

Of note is that both the Boker and the Clauss looked exactly the same at 60x, but dialed in to 100x for the final finish is pretty important.

Originally Posted by red96ta

Clauss has nearly microscopic chipping that I can only accredit to it's mediocre shaving results.

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Under honed blade shouldn't have microscopic chipping.( what you were seeing probable was lower then 4k level saw tooth)
From your last post i understand You (sorry to say) still don't know how properly honed edge should look like.
Never pay attention to the bevel. check the edge.
I would say try send out 1 of your blade and get it is honed .after getting back check the edge, see how it looks like.
this will help you in long run.
hope this helps.