Thread: Mastro Livi... Is it just me?

If I were going to buy one I probably would look for an earlier one cheaply on the secondary market. Doesn't the warranty get voided these days if you use a hone or a pasted strop on your razor these days? If so, why ever spend for new?

"Mastro Livi's freehand razors, are previously checked by Mastro Livi himself, to then be delivered to the buyers ready for use and do not require any type of sharpening. If any type of tampering is any carried out, by means of abrasive stones or pastes, Which Involves damage to the razor's edge, the warranty is void"

So you cannot even use the strop he produces or your warranty is void, or is this a language barrier?

I can make a gold dollar shave......

If you are going to charge a premium then the materials, fit, finish, etc. should reflect that.

They should, but Italy has always been loose and fast on that front... Always.. For anything... People buy new ferraris that spontaneously combust to this day... Lambos don't count, they are german cars in italian drag.. I bought a $200 pair of Diadora shoes last year made in Italy and while most of them were built like a bank vault, the lining may as well have been made from carbon paper... And there were globs of excess glue I had to snap out of the shoes.

That warranty void clause is a red flag lit on fire with spotlights pointed at it being waved by a 6'2" Italian supermodel in a green white and red glitter bikini... It's hard to ignore once you see it...

A. Sanelli made a lovely thin grind with perfect symmetry and fine steel from Premana back in the day.
Italian things have not always been made loose and fast.

There's always an exception to the rule

good to know other think the same as me regarding his razors. was always a mystery as to the popularity. just don't have the look of quality that i would expect for the price.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I've had several of his razors and still have a few. I can tell you on Eboy, try and sell his razors and you get peanuts so not everybody thinks so highly of them.

His makes his razors with a rustic look to them. Some mistake that for poor quality. However, the quality is there if you examine the razors and they are superlative shavers. Having said that I don't know if he is still making them or his son is but the last one I got a few years ago was poorly made and went back. I've heard quality is not what it used to be.

They were originally pushed by Lynn Abrams and he sold them at SRD but eventually he stopped selling them.

My Livis were probably made in the 2014 to 2016 time frame.
I used to have 7, but am now down to 6, and among my 70 odd razors I consider them the least remarkable shavers.

I was once smitten with Livis, partly influenced by the propaganda of a member from Livi’s home town who used to be very active singing Livi’s praises on forums, but came to realize soon enough that they are just not that great shavers.
Think of the “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, if you like.

Admittedly, they are highly individualized and customized creations, each razor unique, but great razors they aren’t.

There may have been a time when Livi deserved all that praise, but my razors are clearly not from that period. I couldn’t care less if they were made by his son, something Livi once violently denied, as long as they were good razors.

This is all not helped by the edge that Livi puts on his razors. After having restored quite a few razors myself, I once thought it shouldn’t be too difficult to put a decent edge on a brand-new Livi that had arrived unfit for the job and got more and more frustrated with my unsuccessful attempts, when all I should have done is wrap the razor up after the first shave, sent it back and ask Livi to make this thing shave or refund my money. I booked that under “lessons learned”.

Livi has repeatedly blamed customers of “overhoning” when they complain of below standard edges. That is easy enough, but he just never seems to ask himself why people would want to start honing his famed creations so early and so much. While I admittedly overdid it with one of his creations out of increasing frustration, I sent all remaining Livis a few months ago to a renown razor maker in Germany to look at them and give me his assessment (most of them were after my above-mentioned experience never honed by me) and his verdict was damning: highly uneven, inconsistent edges.

So now I have six remaining Livis that shave better, but still not that great.
I don’t enjoy using them and I can’t bring myself to sell them to some unsuspecting sucker who, when he finds out how they really perform, might think it was me who ruined these fabled razors.


B

What was the main issue in his estimation, the steel quality or was it the grinding?

Originally Posted by kcb5150

What was the main issue in his estimation, the steel quality or was it the grinding?

According to him an uneven, inconsistent grind on all of them.
I had for some time suspected that Livi bevels are set at a different geometry from what we customarily achieve with our stones.

Steel quality is definitely an issue on my two Damascus Livis, which apparently is Swedish Damasteel® that is widely used for knives but - according to some comments - not so much suited to razors.

After I had them all re-ground by the German razor maker, the Livis shaved better, but still below par, which could be an indication of steel or, to be more precise, heat treatment.

Incidentally, the best shaves from all of my Livis I get from the rather unassuming Grifettos that are considered Livi “entry models” and have the least customization and manual labour invested.


B.