Thread: Quality control and "warped" razors

Hi Guys,

I have honed a couple thousand Dovo's and some hone up very easily and some take a little more effort. The problem with the final grind can be seen if you look at the shoulder of the razor. It also seems like the cheaper models are the most problematic. In any case, Dovo's have always been very nice shavers and overall pretty easy to hone, even for beginners.

Have fun.

Lynn

Well, I guess I better even it out a little and do some routing for Dovo!

My Bismarck is the easiest to hone in my collection, is completely flat. Always a pleasure to hone!

To Lynn's point, the Dovos I'm working on are lower end models, I think.

FWIW, I honed a Dubl Duck Goldedge tonight, and the blade layed perfectly flat. Took a fantastic edge, too.

I'm going to check some other razors and see what I find...

Thanks for your comments,
Josh

I have to say - Dovo's are relatively hard to hone, and of the several I have honed and even more that I have examined, very few lie flat on the hone. Initially I thought that the razors were no good, but like others have discovered, that is not the case, since they do shave well and hold their edges well. The only issue is getting them sharp enough, given that Dovos have curved edges and almost never lie flat on a hone. Try the marker test for proof.

For that matter, any curved edge can only contact a flat hone at a point, unless you want to go postulating that the edge angle varies along the length of the edge. This follows from the theorem that two planes (in this case the two edge planes) must intersect at a straight line. It is therefore a violation of the laws of mathematics to expect that a curved (smile shaped, for instance) edge will ever lie flat on a hone.

This would naturally imply that if you want to hone your curved razor, a narrower hone would work better, just like Allen at Ross Cutlery uses (the half inch coticule). I suspect, without any basis in experiment, that a rod shaped hone (like a rod-shaped ceramic steel) would work best, but like I said, this is only conjecture.

To Echo what has been said by Josh and Lynn and myself on another thread...
I had the same issue last week. I actually went into Trumpers asking for a low end Dovo. They agreed that the blade should be flat so i brought in a block of glass and went through their entire stock of low end razors before finding the single 1 (of 7 or 8) that lay apparently flat.

OTOH, the higher end Black Star razors didn't seem to have any problems. I emailed Dovo about the same issue last week and have yet to get a reply but I get impression that it's more a case of poorer standards and quality control on the cheaper models.