Quote Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors View Post
As I mentioned, don't expect an entry level Dovo to hone right up.
Thanks for the advice. I learnt that myself, lol. I had been using cartridge razors for over a decade. It was alright until it wasn't. All of a sudden I found I could only get one or two comfortable shaves out a cartridge. So I inspected the used cartridges carefully, and realized the blades were rustic and most importantly rolled. That was the last straw. I turned my eyes to straight razors which I knew nothing about then. Literally I just searched online and picked up a Dovo Astrale. The Dovo Astrale arrived shave ready, I could not understand how but it was. I was initially very happy with it so I picked another two of Dovo Specials. Just after around 2 months, I had to hone it, then I realized the spine was off quite a bit, the edge was warped pretty badly but the return windows was closed. So I inspected the two Dovo Specials, both had some minor spine issue and also some micro chips near the toes. I guess I was lucky on those two. I did not realized started with hell mode then, just kept trying to solve various issues encountered along the line. Finally I got the Astrale keener than arrived again, after putting dozens of hours into it, purchasing 3 sets of Shaptons, Naniwas, Kings etc and some other natural stones.

I cannot agree more with your assertions regarding Dovo, they simply ships those should be binned. There was a video on how Dovo honing razors, it perfectly explained why there were so many warped edges. I probably would not touch Dovos from now on.


Quote Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors View Post
You should practice your honing on a razor that you will actually want to shave with.
This is absolutely true and that's exactly how I improved my honing skills. The problem with this approach is that I can only shave once a couple of days and thus it will take a long time to improve, especially when you are already good enough to get super comfortable shaves straight off the stones. And if you indeed got a decent razor, it doesn't take much to get it shave ready as you mentioned. I snatched up a Boker Schildpatt 2.0 recently, all it took were 30 strokes on Shapton 12K and 5 strokes on Shapton 30K, there is little you can learn from it.

Quote Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors View Post
but try some vintage blades
Yep, I'm doing that too. So far I picked up ~20 of them, most of them were actually way better ground than new Dovos, so far I only encountered one warped edge. What annoys me is that some sellers would do stupid things with them such as nickel plating without thoroughly removing the rusts. Such BS significantly increased the effort needed. I find this is way too time consuming for me, so I'm moving away from this to NOS(New-Old-Stock) razors. But it seems to be as bad as buying brand new ones. So the Le Jaguar came with no spine issues but the edge was warped too, just a little bit better than the Dovo Astrale. I managed to get the Le Jaguar shave ready and it shaves really nice but just like the Dove Astrale, I'll put it away as too much effort required to hone it. There are 2 NOSes and one vintage still on their way, I'm wondering how would they look like.

Regarding those eBay auctions, I found myself hardly won. As you pointed out, it's probably a good thing. I would not want to pay too much for something will be honed up and then sitting in my boxes. I did quite a few rustic ones, and I don't want to do it any more as it's making more sense to only acquire those in decent shapes.