Thread: Livi vs. Wacker

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Its a matter of how you define better. Do you mean the shave? A $40 Eboy special might beat them all.

a 40 buck eboy special beat a Livi.... never! Sure, you can probably match a Livi if you're lucky and your eboy special just happens to tick all those boxes, but never beat.

And you'd have to be real lucky, whereas with a Livi there's no luck, only reliability.

Depends on how its honed I suppose.

Actually probably my best shaving razors are a couple of vintage Dovo's I got NOS. I have a bunch of Livi's and I'm really splitting hairs here. However just because the Dovo shaves better by a fraction of a millimeter I would never say the Dovo is a better razor, not for a second. Really when two razors shave so close its pretty much a dead heat.

Originally Posted by majurey

a 40 buck eboy special beat a Livi.... never! Sure, you can probably match a Livi if you're lucky and your eboy special just happens to tick all those boxes, but never beat.

Never say never.

I paid £1 ($1.60) for a Fontana I'd put up against anything.

Originally Posted by littlesilverbladefromwale

I paid £1 ($1.60) for a Fontana I'd put up against anything.

I paid £3 for my Wilkinson and I'd say the same

I've honed a Wacker yesterday and it had heel issues like other blades, LOL
I guess its all about taste.

The Livi Regrinds are actually new razors. Mastro Livi initially found an old stock of unfinished blades and he did the final grind and heat treat on them. He called them regrinds I believe because of the language difference. Typically when we think of regrinds we think of an old razor that is reground and brought back to use. These have only been around the last couple years.

The majority of the custom work Mastro Livi does are his own forgings and designs although lately he has been using forged steel from both the Bergamo and Silvano families in Italy. Both old and well respected families there known for their craftsmanship in forging metals.

Bergamo just did one where they forged a high carbon onto a damascus and it turned out really cool. The top of the razor is damascus and the bottom 1/4 including the edge is high carbon. Mastro Livi is known for trying new approaches like this. He was the first to make razors from Takeda Steel too, I believe. The san mai steels are also very cool and shave very well.

I have always enjoyed the way Mastro Livi experiments with things like placing the MOP into the razor itself and bringing back the MOP and Ivory into the razor shanks.

Lynn

I think it's cool there are now a few makers to choose from. Nobody is going to make everyone happy, and if you think we makers don't take inspiration from each other to keep trying to improve what we offer, you're a fool. I really liked a lot of the Livis I saw at this year's get-together, and lot of the other custom work, too, like Spazola's. I try to take inspiration from everywhere. Oldblades had a couple killer old factory blades from which I'm going to incorporate some design features. Every maker offers something different, and while I appreciate people saying nice things about my work, I think every one of us has something to offer, and I, for one, can't wait to see what's next!

Well, this thread has been my undoing. As I posted earlier, I have the quarter hollow wacker, and really like it a lot. Nice contrast to my full hollow Dovo. The only idea buzzing around my head was, gee, would a 1/2 hollow razor give me the best of both worlds? Fortunately (for my pocketbook), I have not really been able to find a 1/2 hollow razor. Until this thread highlighed these Livi's where 1/2....

I could only hold out so long. Just ordered a Livi today...

-Chief