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Thread: Dovo Best Quality 6/8 vs Dovo Bismarck

  1. #11
    Senior Member Iceni's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by spacex View Post
    Thank you all for all the response! I was looking at the picture of a Bismarck and it seems like the spine is a triangular shaped spine with some "cuts" on the top of the spine. http://www.royalshave.com/mm5/graphi...y-handle_2.jpg

    If you flip the Bismarck in mid-air when you turn it during stropping, do you really still have to use a layer of tape (it seems like as long as the "cuts" do not touch the strop, it wouldn't damage it)? If so, wouldn't it become tedious to try to put a layer to tape every single time you strop?

    Lastly, I know that people use electrical tape during honing. What type of tape do you use for stropping?
    you could flip it in the air, It'll slow down your stropping and might add to the risk of nicking the strop or rolling the edge. Keeping the spine in contact at all times give you a solid reference for the flip.

    The tape to hone should be electrical. For the stropping any tape will do. The acid test for seeing if this is needed is pretty simple. Get a scrap of leather or an old belt and do 200 laps without tape. If you don't get any scratching you should be fine to take it to a strop without the tape. Also if your using a cheap strop like a whipped dog poor mans special that you don't mind damaging then just go straight to the strop. If it starts to scratch you know the solution. And provided your paying attention then you should only do minimal damage if any.

    I don't think you can go wrong with either blade but the Bismarck is worth the new price, A regular 6/8 full hollow vintage razor in good condition from the bay should give a comparable shave to the dovo, and you should be able to get a vintage blade for under £30 in great condition. The 6/8 full hollow is probably the second most common razor size after 5/8.

    With that in mind and since this will be your second razor the next logical step would be learning to hone. You have 2 razors in rotation, so picking up a couple of gold dollars and a cheap king icebear 1K/6K wetstone and learning to get an edge on those blades will set you up to be able to get all the 6/8 full hollow blades you can dream of off the bay and sort them yourself.
    Last edited by Iceni; 03-10-2014 at 02:43 AM.

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  3. #12
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    Iceni, what an wonderful answer! Thank you so much! I do have a cheap strop so I will test on it by moving the edge on it.
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  4. #13
    Senior Member Attila's Avatar
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    I used to own a Bismark. I never had to tape the spine for stropping.

    Taping a spine for a razor when stropping? This is the first I have ever heard of something like that.

    I guess I'm a bid dubious since I don't like to use tape for honing either but I can see the application if one is using tape to protect the gold wash or special design on a spine or is honing a wedge grind.

  5. #14
    Senior Member Iceni's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Attila View Post
    I used to own a Bismark. I never had to tape the spine for stropping.

    Taping a spine for a razor when stropping? This is the first I have ever heard of something like that.
    It's a known problem with the Bismarck spine work. It's not something that all of them suffer from, but sometimes those file marks are just a little bit too keen. They don't scratch on the stroke, but rather on the flip and especially if your stropping method involves a little sideways movement and you run the flip a little. Softer strops, and strops with a dye also show the scratches a lot more than a naked veg tan strop.

    Tape to hone is more a geometry thing with most razors. As the razor is honed the spine gets thinner, and the change in spine width is far faster than the reduction in blade depth. Meaning the more honing a razor receives the more likely it is that the bevel has become enlarged. A single layer of tape isn't going to alter the geometry by a massive amount, but it will protect the gold wash.

    You can actually do some pretty simple math to work out your bevel angle using a right angled triangle calculator. All you need is the spine width and the distance from spine to edge. The rest is trigonometry. (To get an accurate angle you have to split the razor into 2 triangles. So you use half the spine width, and then multiply the final angle by 2.) This system is useful if you have a razor that needs a fair bit of work to remove chips so you can get the best bevel by setting the spine width before you start to hone.

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  6. #15
    Senior Member Attila's Avatar
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    Excellent answer. There is some very advanced useful info here. Thanks for taking the time.

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    My Bismarck arrived today. Oh gosh, what a beautiful razor! I used my finger to run through the "cuts" on the back and it felt pretty smooth. Using my cheap strop, I stropped the back (with the back vertical to the strop surface) to see if it would "rough up" my cheap strop. It did seem to leave some trails on the linen side, so I decided to "smooth it out" a bit by stropping it on both the linen and leather side of my cheap strop.

    Then I stropped it on my SRD strop, and it did not leave any mark. I am happy with it and won't be using a tape.

    Thanks for all the help everyone!

  8. #17
    Senior Member Attila's Avatar
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    Congrats! Enjoy your shaves.

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