Thread: Expensive mastro Livi vs cheap shavette..

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

A full time razor or cutlery maker is a rare thing. Most guys do it as a sideline or hobbie. I think Tim Zowada is the only full time knife maker in the U.S. Livi make s all kinds of cutlery besides razors. Its not all that time consuming as you might thing. If your skilled you can turn out a razor pretty fast.

As has been said your paying for the guys reputation and experience. Thats why a Zowada cost what it does and an unknown razor maker charges far less though the final product might be just a good.

Lastly, the shave is not the reason to buy these razors. A $50 Eboy special can shave just a good. If that's how you look at it its not for you.

I just had to respond to this one. First of all there are hundreds more full time knifemakers in the U.S. than I think you realize. I know several personally. One in particular completes maybe one or two a month if he's lucky and that is full time. He said maybe 6 solid hours of work a day. His knives sell for thousands and are worth it when you see it up close. Do I have that money to spend? No. But for someone who is that into knives, they would be very happy with one. They are fully functional but just as artistic. Obviously, I also don't think you realize how much time doing certain intricate things may take. One knife may have filework that takes upwards of 20 hours. Now anyone can throw down some repeating pattern like slashes across a spine and call it filework but that doesn't mean it was done well. As for damascus, until you have made some yourself from scratch (I have) then I don't think you will ever appreciate why it fetches prices that can reach hundreds per inch. There are so many things going into a custom that the end user would never even think about.

It is more than reputation and experience. Personally I think some customs are underpriced considering the work that goes in. The shaves will probably all be comparable so no, that cannot really factor into price and it would not be a good reason to buy one.