Thread: Modified Gold Dollar

Originally Posted by STF

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

I have good modern ones too, and enjoy them. The bad thing about the modern Dovo razors is that if you get a dud you’re out a lot of money if you’ve touched it to the stones and aren’t a Dovo-certified honer. You won’t know how bad it is until you see how the stones hit the bevel, at which point your warranty is void. The dud rate and warranty restrictions are enough for many to avoid them. My Gold Dollar duds cost me $4.61 each.

Originally Posted by mrjin

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.

The spine dictates the edge bevels. If the edge is straight then the spine is straight. You can't have one without the other.

If our bevel isn't perfect. wide or smaller here or there. Your spine might have a little imperfection here or there.

How many in this thread have made or tried to make thair own blade?

Until then don't make judgements.

Within reason all of these imperfections can be dealt with and understood.

Originally Posted by STF

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

Assume you got it decades ago? Or I was just unlucky.

Originally Posted by Steve56

I have good modern ones too, and enjoy them. The bad thing about the modern Dovo razors is that if you get a dud you’re out a lot of money if you’ve touched it to the stones and aren’t a Dovo-certified honer. You won’t know how bad it is until you see how the stones hit the bevel, at which point your warranty is void. The dud rate and warranty restrictions are enough for many to avoid them. My Gold Dollar duds cost me $4.61 each.

Cannot agree more on this. My dud modern Dovo Astrale is actually a good shaver when I received it, it got even better after I got it shave ready again. But still I don't want to go through it again ever. And I did not even know their warranty policy... I guess was lucky that the two Dovo Specials I bought before noticing the issue only had minor issues that can easily fixed. To me, Dovo's dud rate is above 1/3 and I don't believe that's anywhere near reasonable.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

The spine dictates the edge bevels. If the edge is straight then the spine is straight. You can't have one without the other.

I guess if there were higher resolution pics, you can probably see what I meant. There is no absolute straight line or absolute flat surface. And most importantly, the spine and the edge are in a 3d space, both ain't straight do not mean you cannot have a flat surface go through both of the edge and the spine.

Originally Posted by 32t

If our bevel isn't perfect. wide or smaller here or there. Your spine might have a little imperfection here or there.

How many in this thread have made or tried to make thair own blade?

Until then don't make judgements.

Within reason all of these imperfections can be dealt with and understood.

Agreed. There were lots of issue with those, but I guess dealt with them successfully, although one was pretty close to failure. Those were actually much better than I expected giving the prices. But I still cannot recommend them to anyone as the efforts required to hone them up.

Originally Posted by mrjin

Assume you got it decades ago? Or I was just unlucky.

No not long, I only started straight shaving in 2019 and My Dovo Astrale with Ebony scales came as part of a beginners kit including badger brush, soap and a board strop.

I bought the kit from Classic Edge and he honed the razor for me prior to shipping so it was shave ready, shame I wasn't lol.

It was a steep learning curve but I had lots of help from the guys here. I made a movie of my shaving attempts and it was like I had a bathroom full of guys right behind me.

I learned fast with their help

Originally Posted by STF

No not long, I only started straight shaving in 2019 and My Dovo Astrale with Ebony scales came as part of a beginners kit including badger brush, soap and a board strop.

I bought the kit from Classic Edge and he honed the razor for me prior to shipping so it was shave ready, shame I wasn't lol.

It was a steep learning curve but I had lots of help from the guys here. I made a movie of my shaving attempts and it was like I had a bathroom full of guys right behind me.

I learned fast with their help

Wow, I was unlucky then. Mine came shave ready out of the box,thought not as good as I can get it to. When I found here, it was after getting the rabbit hole of fixing geometry issues, trying different stones and finally honed it up and started looking for source of 0.1 diamond paste/spray.

So I found here too late and virtually got through all those beginner problems alone. But, hey, other than cutting myself lightly a couple of times and accumulated heaps of different sharpening supplies which turned out I probably don't need at all, did not run into big problems really.