Thread: carbon or stainless, any thoughts?

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Seems to be a lot of "steel" experts here, I don't claim to be a steel expert nor do I really care how many parts of what or how hard the steel is nor the abrasion resistance of the steel...

Really my only concern is "how good does it shave"????

If you take a second and re-read this thread you are going to find an revealing fact popping up, it is not really SS razors that have a reputation for being hard to hone, it is one SS razor that seems to be in almost all of your posts "The Friodur" honest go back and read from the beginning yourselves.... Those 7/8 and 8/8 worked back Friodurs that are out there seem to have given SS a bad rep, throw in a couple of new Dovo's and you have people thinking SS is hard to hone and even harder to get smooth....

Also I have taken quite a bit of rust off quite a few vintage SS razors so lets not start thinking that they are rust proof it is Satin-Less as in two words, as in less likely to stain....

Now if you are really into SS blades the absolute smoothest one I have ever shaved with is a Hess #44 and guess what don't go sending huge money on one either, they are not anything that special, just a very nice good looking, good shaving razor.... Try out a older, smaller sized Friodur also, very, very, smooth edges, I have one in 11/16 that is one of my top blades....

What I am saying here is, SS isn't any harder to hone to a smooth shave, just a few SS razors are...

Exactly.

We can look at metalurgy, and come up with theories of what "should" work better, based on carbon content, rockwell hardness, modulus of elasticity, thermodynamic expantion coefficients, etc....but that really doesn't matter a wet slap, what matters is how does it shave?

My first two Friodurs were very sharp razors, but always felt "scratchy". My two Dovo stainless on the other hand honed up as smooth as any carbon blade out there, and have had great edge retention as well. I was shocked the first time I used a Dovo stainless (my first two razors were the Friodurs, the third the Dovo), as it was quite noticeably smoother than the Frios.

I have since come some ways in my honing techniques, and can now put a decently smooth edge on teh Friodur, but it takes some doing. As these seem to be one of the more popular stainless razors out there, i agree that it is probably why stainless as a whole has gotten a bad rap.


I have another stainless razor on order, so we'll see how that one feels. And I'm also interested in the stainless razors that Rasurpur sells....All in the name os research, you understand!

Here's the edge of the Dovo Renaissance at 200x


Followed by a pic of the Frio edge at 200x, see the little warps and wiggles at the very edge of the Frio? That is unique to the Frios, and what gives it that scritchy feel. I've found that a white pated canvas strop helps smooth that out, but don't have any images of it yet.