Thread: Thinnest razor in production right now?

Originally Posted by hatzicho

Unfortunately this is absolutely true. The real razor grinders that had mastered their handcraft belong to a dying species. The razors are not thin enough, the bellies and the area to the edge are wavy, thickness of spine is uneven. And this applies to most of the still existing companies. Forget the "evide sonnant" - absolutely nothing is singing on that razor. Thick as an axe - like my old master would say. Dovos are not much better nowadays. There are two companies in Solingen that still do the handcraft in the old way with experienced and skillfull grinders. Wacker and Revisor. If you order a full hollow razor here, you will get one and not an axe with an absolute perfect gold etching "full hollow ground".
Regards Peter

Thanks a lot for the information. That is what I've been thinking about and other straight-razor shavers say so.
Maybe, I will get a Filarmonica someday and also a Wacker.

I've got a TI on the way but I know what to expect.

Again, thanks a lot.
Kind regards,
Mike

Originally Posted by Steve56

Peter, I’ve always thought that if we could go back in time to the great days of Filarmonica, Sistrum, Dreifus, Peres, Heljestrand, and many other great hollow grind makers, and look into their shops, we would find someone that looked like our grandmother, with Coke bottle glasses, smoking unfiltered cigarettes and knocking out Filarmonicas, Bartmanns, Dorkos, and Heljestrands one after another for 40 years until she retired!

I have a reason for saying this. I used to rebuild Harley Davidson engines in a past life, and they had a peculiar two-part flywheel that served as the crankshaft, and it required that both halves be trued to each other. It took me and my friends 30 minutes at best and sometimes an hour or over to assemble one of these motorcycle crankshafts. Well we went on a tour of the Harley Davidson factory, and saw, yes, your mother, trueing these assemblies on the factory production line. She had a copper hammer, a truing stand, and a wrench. ‘Whack, whack, a pull on the wrench, and she did in one minute what took us 60x as long to do. That’s because that’s all she did every day and she was so much better at it than we were it wasn’t even funny.

Practice makes perfect.

Well Steve,
you are absolutely right.

Werner Breidenbach always told me, that after he finished his apprenticeship at Paul Drees, he was doing the pre-hollow-grinding on the blades for his boss for about 10 years. The pre-hollow-grinding, only one small (but time consuming) step in the whole razor grinding and production process. Thousands of blades. Sitting at the hollow-grinding machine for maybe 10h/d, doing only one movement. For 10 years or more.
Of course when he finished that period he exactly knew how a blade at the end of that production step must look, feel and sound - to be perfect.

When I started learning straight razor grinding from Werner Breidenbach I visit him very frequently to show him my newest works I did since our last meeting. Always hoping that I have been better that time than before of course. Werner simply looked at the blades, mirrored them in the ligth, did a thumb test to see the thickness of the edge area and maybe made a small sound test.
After the inspection he doesen’t say simply good or bad, spine too thick (often still tooo thick!! ), than the hollow too thin („now it sounds tinny …“ ) and so on.

No he also explained me! exactly how I did the different grinding steps, where I have been doing too much, wrong wheel diameters, grinding wheels not prepared properly and exactly every fault that I made during grinding, Pließten and polishing. And this without having seen me grinding and taking into account, that previous actions are mostly made unrecognizable by subsequent actions.
When I than looked him in the eye he always smiled and said – well I have been learning that too…..

And indeed it is unbelievable what you can see on a blade if you know the different steps of production and once needed to master them by your own.

Stay sharp
Peter

The thinnest razor i have is a Böker 7/8 extra hollow. I believe all the new Böker razors are now extra hollow. They are approaching the limit of what the steel can take with the hardening they use. There is no belly, making it really flexible. I prefer a full hollow with a belly to stiffen the blade a little. They can be a little grabby going against the grain.