Thread: Modified Gold Dollar

No I get it.

I always tell my customers that Chevy made two Vettes: the Corvette and the Chevette. Sure they both roll down the road from point A to point B. BUT, don't expect to pay the Chevette price and get Corvette performance. If you want a cheap beater knock yourself out. Just don't show up to the Corvette club meetings and expect a warm welcome.

It's not that anyone would care what you drive but comparing the two probably wouldn't be met with enthusiasm.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Those are all valid arguments and I don't begrudge anyone their right to do whatever the heck they please. I guess my perspective (in this moment at least) is from a restoration point of view. I buy razors to restore and resell and it is always a trick to balance the purchase price x effort and materials² ÷ final sale price = profit equation. Part of that is picking something that someone would spend money on because, if they won't, then all was for naught. Maybe I misjudge or assume too much but a reworked GD would never fit that bill for me. But, hey......who in the sam hill am I?

Well, yeah, as for restoring a GD, you are right, why bother? A brand new one is too cheap, to go through the bother of restoring an old one. And the oldest GD in existence was made in 1996, anyway, so not a very vintage-y vintage, and worse than their current production quality, too.

Reworking or modding, I found it to be fun back when I did it, but half of the fun was making something interesting out of something dismissed and regarded by many as junk, that cost only chimp change. So the "junky-ness" was actually part of the draw. When the novelty wore off, I stopped all the fancy stuff on them.

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Well, I am sick of coming to the front page and seeing GD threads dominating, fed continuously by members here who should know better.

It would be nice to have ying and yang discuss their junk in a lonesome thread OR preferably PMs.

Stuff is not for shaving and that is a fact. You cannot learn anything from them except to confirm that they are indeed junk.
I don't think a disussion is warrented, esp by other members here. It just never ends.
There you have it

I shaved with one just a couple days ago. I do it often, and the shave is just as good as I get from one of my Bismarcks or another favorite of mine, a Union Spike, or any other make or model that I own. They are definitely and precisely FOR shaving. I will make a point to shave with one tomorrow. That doesn't mean that anybody, especially a beginner, should rush right over to AliExpress and pop for a box of them instead of a new TI or Carre or even an Aust. And I think until this point, the discussion was quite balanced and gentlemanly, without mention of censorship or blanket condemnation that basically only restates the obvious. I seem to remember once before, when the "separate thread for Gold Dollar mentions or discussion" was tried, before. If this were done again, would my avatar be banned on the rest of the forum? Hey, I'm just here to discuss.

Discussion of straight razors is always warranted, IMHO, if it is reasoned and sincere. That's what we are here for. Even you, on this thread, saying that this particular brand should not be discussed, are here discussing it. Nice of you to post! But, I hope you realize you are only adding to the controversy and probably making more guys want to genuinely try one. Shucks, if I was currently selling them, I would probably ask you if I could quote you on my website! Gold Dollars, yeah baby, shave with what all the cool razor outlaws are using these days!

Originally Posted by Steve56

I also avoid modern Dovos. Their quality has apparently improved since the buyout, but I have not tried or honed one.

As far as the Chinese razors go, stick with the Gold Dollars/Gold Monkeys. Any ‘ZY’ type blade or razor with wooden scales have mostly been a disappointment to me.

Buying Gold Dollars/Gold Monkeys is a numbers game. Recently I bought 12 of them for $4.41 each, delivered. The experience was ‘normal’ for these razors. Two honed right up, two are going to be more trouble than they’re worth, one I have not honed yet, and seven honed up with some degree of corrective honing and will be fine going forward. These numbers are consistent with my previous experience. Don’t expect every one to hone straightforwardly and expect a 20% failure rate. By ‘failure’ I mean that you can’t reasonable\y invest the time and expensive hone wear to get a sub-$5 razor with significant defects in shaving shape vs better examples of the same razor.

If you understand this and are OK with it, they can be fun to hone and to give as gifts. The good ones go to your friends and the bad ones to your enemies, yuk, yuk.

My mid range Dovos have all been good, not a lemon in the bunch. It is their entry level tier that sucks and requires extra work to make shave ready. I love me some Bismarcks and Palisanders and Carres and Bergischer Lowes. But yeah, every accomplished straight shaver ought to have a handful of GD66 or P-81 or 208's to play around with. Or not, as preferred.

Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors

My mid range Dovos have all been good, not a lemon in the bunch. It is their entry level tier that sucks and requires extra work to make shave ready. I love me some Bismarcks and Palisanders and Carres and Bergischer Lowes. But yeah, every accomplished straight shaver ought to have a handful of GD66 or P-81 or 208's to play around with. Or not, as preferred.

I think that you’ve been a bit lucky with the mid-range Dovos, I have a Palisander, a plain blade Bismark that has the characteristic frown, as do many other mid and upper range Dovos according to forum posts.

It might be worthwhile to note that the OP was not about Gold Dollars, it was about cheap Chinese razors on AliExpress, several brands.

To me, it’s worth discussing because there are some Chinesebrands to definitely avoid regardless of your taste or intentions.

As a side note, they can make a good razor if they want to. Below are two Gold Monkey 777s. The one labeled ‘M3’ is the standard item that you’ll get if you order pretty much any of the Gold Dollar line, though they tend to be less beefy as you go up in model numbers. But M1, with the same stamp is definitely not the same razor. I bought two of them new about 10 years ago, and M1 has a stabilizer, a relieved heel, and is ground as well as common razors from just about anywhere. Haven’t seen any since. They came in the usual factory packaging.

Another ‘good’ razor was sent to me for honing by a member on another forum. He got it in a ‘kit’ (brush, strop, etc for about $40) from his brother for Christmas and couldn’t hone it. I told him that I’d try but it may well be a RSO. ‘Gentleman’s Barber Shop’ was the brand and the razor had ‘GBS’ on the blade. It was obviously not a Gold Dollar product. Well, turns out that there were some surprises in store for me. GBS usually sold 5/8 razors, but this one was 6/8 - with a 5/8 spine thickness. iIt took 3-4 layers of tape to get it to between 16 and 17 degrees, but then it honed up fairly easily with only minor correction needed. What was truly amazing was that the steel was hard and felt fine grained. It took a stellar edge and he was very pleased with it. I’ve always wondered what the 5/8 was like.

Not talking about certain brands if razors because of quality is a bit disingenuous and Dovo and TI could also be lumped into that quality class. If you don’t believe me, go look at some of Glen’s Dovo correction videos about defects that should have never left the factory - and he’s absolutely right. TI? Wavy bevels, thicker grinds on the modern ones. And popsicle stick wooden scales with spacers instead of proper scales with wedges on everything, don’t get me started on that.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Whoa! That was a lot.

I admit I didn't read all or even most of all that but just on the surface it seems a lot like work to buy razors for the purpose of toiling over. Why not buy things that are free form all the problems, are made of decent steel and are worth having once you're done? Remember, once you have done all that messing around with it you still have cheap Chinese made crap. It reminds me of the adage, "you can't make chicken salad out of chicken manure."

I get the adventure aspect and the for the sake of the endeavor part I guess but my thought is, if you want to do a bunch of work to a blade why not make them yourself?

That's just my thoughts. I bought one or two and did what you are doing and at the end of it all I had significantly improved mediocre razors with no real or even palpable value. You'll never be able to sell it and recoup a mere pittance for your efforts.

If the point is to learn it seems to me that these don't really represent well anything that you would want to keep anyway. And, again, if you want to really get an understanding of what goes into repair and correcting blade geometry make some yourself. You don't have to forge them. Get some bar stock or some old large files and anneal them in a stoked charcoal fire and shape them by stock removal. That's how I got started.

Then, at the end of it all, once you have learned what it takes for it to take shape, take a bevel and shave plus learned how to craft one you will end up with a one of a kind, custom razor.

I wasn't thinking of buying them at all. I was looking for something else while I was waiting for a few NOS razors to arrive. I guess it might be because I searched vintage razors on eBay, AliExpress started to push customized ads to me. When I saw those dirt cheap with free delivery RSOs, I suddenly had an idea to grab a few and see how good or rather how bad they could be. I bet those might arrive earlier than those NOSes and indeed they arrived just after the Le Jaguar(a bummer just like my Dovo Astrale). Tracking of the others stopped updating for two weeks now...

Originally Posted by Steve56

There are several reasons to go the Gold Dollar route.

One is when you want or need multiple identical razors say for comparing finishers, tomo nagura, and so on without putting wear on a 7-day set or matched pair of more valuable razors. I’ve used multiple GDs to do these kinds of tests many times, but always confirm the results on a higher quality razor. But they can keep wear off better razors.

When you order, you always order several because of the failure rate and shipping is usually free or cheap so why order just 2-3? Then of course you need to at least begin to hone them to identify the duds.

Another reason is to test metal polishing techniques, materials, stones and so on. You normally wouldn’t mar the finish on a fine razor to see if the latest batch of uchigumori scratches steel, but with a Gold Dollar there’s no problem. Granted you could use a cheap knife or tool to test for scratching.

I use one if I travel by air with checked luggage - no need to worry about losing the W&B Ottoman Egyptian and Royal Windsor, and if you leave one in a hotel room there’s no need to go back for it.

If you’re meeting fellow SR people in your travels or non-SR wet shaving folks, a ‘fixed’ and properly honed Gold Dollar is usually a very welcome gift.

Remanufacturing new blades is not common among straight razor users, but if you go to the kitchen knife forums you’ll find that thinning, re-grinding, and polishing blades is an everyday kind of thing. If you have a foot in that world, you have the tools and techniques to make fixing up most Gold Dollars fairly easy though not always as quick as I’d like because a razor is more fragile than a knife because it’s thinner.

Lastly, this is a hobby, at least to the lengths we go to, and you do many things just because it’s kind of fun. I like to hone, and if you have a fistful of Dollars, you’ll get your fix.

Never thought of those. But those are really very valid reasons. For this case, it was just my curiosity and anticipating of delay of delivery of my NOS razors.

Originally Posted by STF

I only actually have one GD.

I got it to practice honing and re scaling etc.

As it happens, I fixed the heel honed it up and I never did re-scale it.

I have that GD in my rotation and I'm always pleased when it comes round.

Its not pretty, its clunky but it holds an edge and its a great shaver.

I'm not suggesting by any means that you should all rush out and get one, I wont get any more but I got it to play with and practice with.

I can hone well enough to suit my face and as time goes by I will get better but I was lucky, my GD is as good for me as any of the others, I doubt very much if there all decent, but for less than $5 I'm not complaining and as said, if you leave it somewhere you wont want to drive back an hour and hope it's still there.

You answered my question regarding edge retention. I got the GD shave ready, but I had no confidence whether it's going to hold the edge.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

A lot of your pics look like the spine is warped. If so, the edge is warped & that's from the heat treatment, rarely from the grinding process..
All the metal you remove just gives you ugly bevels & a razor that remains warped.
I get that you're learning & practicing but the underlying problem remains on that type of razor.
Just saying, if you're learning razors why start with the hard basket.

I double checked, the edge of those 4 were straight actually. But I think you were right about two of them being warped. I guess it might be because the edge were thick enough and the warps weren't that bad. If the edges were removed by 5mm, then those edges would become warped for sure.

Btw, I started hell mode with my Dovo Astrale, and those were actually slightly better ground than it. Never mind, it's just some silly magic idea.

My first razor was a Dovo Astrale, I still use it,its great.