Thread: An ebay razor ( no not a Gold Dollar) review.

I've got one too, I confirm it's very forgiving and smooth. It's very easy to hone, probably because the steel is not very hard.
I found that with my hard beard the best is honing with 5 layers of tape, so that the edge is more robust.
It's very forgiving and good for beginners, though it's not holding the edge for long. With my hard beard I need to strop again every half face pass.

@ sterm
so you would agree saying that the razor could benefit form having a thicker spine.

Originally Posted by rocarule

Really smooth and forgiving razor. It was about 90% shave ready. I did about 5 minutes of passes over the linen strop and about 2 minutes on the Russian shell. Now this begs the question; if he can produce a razor of this quality for this price why can't dovo do the same?

Dovo would have soon gone out of business if their razors only held an edge as long as these things.

Originally Posted by Martin103

Apparently, Luigi pera designed the razor and its fabricated in Italy by unknow maker.

From what I can gather, Luigi Pera, aka Luigicoupechou, is a 'razor enthusiast for 20 years', a restorer of old razors and the seller of the Gladiator Blade, hails from Sicily, but lives and sells from France - he has many razors on Ebay with France as the marketing point.

One of the razor sites (can't remember if it is a French or Italian or Spanish one!) shows how he masks the blade blanks off with paper stencils held in place by tape for the 'Gladiator Blade' etch. I haven't been able to find any definite info about the blades, so I can't tell whether he is the maker or a re-seller or importer.

Although they sound like they shave OK, the edge-holding characteristics and 'wrong' blade geometry suggest several of the far-east blades sent to me for honing that I have had to reject as being under-par. An interesting point is that one make, known well on this forum and others as a brand to avoid, has at least one adherent now in the UK - he says it shaves wonderfully well and he only paid £29 for it. So maybe the technology of what we regard as poor makers from the far east is catching up some. Wouldn't that be something?!

Not that I am claiming Luigi Pera's Gladiator is such an example - it just bears a remarkable similarity to some others I have seen. I sincerely hope his is a good razor.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

...
Although they sound like they shave OK, the edge-holding characteristics and 'wrong' blade geometry suggest several of the far-east blades sent to me for honing that I have had to reject as being under-par.
...
Not that I am claiming Luigi Pera's Gladiator is such an example - it just bears a remarkable similarity to some others I have seen. I sincerely hope his is a good razor.

I've bought some blades from him and seen the positive evolution of blade and spine shape in last months. I would exclude it's a far east product, it's rather the product of a razor enthusiast that is taking care of some functional issues that are normaly discarded in far east mass products.
I wish they will soon become good razors, for the moment (2 months ago) I was seeing a couple of issues:
The spine is too narrow, and this is a typical procurement issue for small makers because the steel bars that you can easily buy are conceived for knife manufacturing and would fit only a 5/8 blade.
The steel isn't hard enough, a consequence of thermal treatment that they will hopefully overcome with experience.

That seems sound enough, Sterm!

I'm not trying to knock the product, just pin-point the origin. It seems from the Ebay listings in France, Canada, UK, etc as well as on other sites that he produces masses of razors, all virtually identical in the major respects (shoulders, heels and tip can all be modified on any razor, as can filework, which is why I am not counting these things), which is no mean feat for a small-scale maker. I have looked, but can't find any account of the making of the blade, just post-production things like the etching process.

Most small-scale makers like to post videos and articles about their workshops, machinery, forges, heat-treating apparatus - seeing something like that from Mr Pera would be nice.

Regards,
Neil