I have a Dovo Best Class Stainless Steel razor and it is an excellent shaver day in and day out. The rest of my straight razors are higher end and are awesome shavers.
I would recommend upping the money a little and considering a higher end razor on SRP classifieds. I do not know too much about the new Bokers and I think some members who have it will weigh in on it.
Pabster
I literally just opened one I bought from SRD minutes ago. It was very well packaged.
This will be my first straight razor, so I dont know what to say quality wise. It looks good, feels solid and came very sharp.
Came with lifetime free honing, so cant go wrong with that...
Boker makes great razors. My King Cutter was manufactured between 1924 and 1935. It's a great shaver. I am not familiar with the new stock Bokers, but my guess is it will serve you well for a lifetime and then some!
Hi Josh, while I don't have the new wave of Boker's, I do however have an older version of 5/8 King Cutter that says H Boker & Co with tree insignia on front most shank. It shaves remarkably well. Actually even after having it dulled, it was easy to work with as far as honing ( I'm a n00bie honer ).
I don't have the Dovo you speak of but I do have both Blackstar and Best Quality in 5/8. The craftsmanship on the Best Quality is a little disappointing for the pins on the pivot are misaligned and pins are loose - but can be easily corrected. In spite of this, it provided me with a close shave to boot! I don't care for gold washes in general but the edges are nice and glide smoothly. No tugging whatsoever.
SRD is pleasant to deal with and in my experience they ship rather quickly but of course it depends on your locale as well. Best of luck mate!
I saw the new Boker King Cutter at the last WNY meet. It is a ver well made razor as far as mew razors go and Lynn spoke favorably of it. We had a question on a vintage Boker 7 day set so CarrieM wrote to Boker USA and the president/owner of Boker responded to our inquire. To me that is good customer support. Doc has also been in communication w./ Boker in the past and he also had a good experience with them.
I also have the Dovo in white micarta. I didn't buy it new but it wasn't that old. I don;t have any issue with the craftsmanship and it does shave very good with it's stainless blade. It looks much better than any pictures I have seen if it. The scales are a bit thicker than the average set of scales on most other razors but it balances well from what I can remember. This Dovo is one of the few new production razors I own. I am also about to purchase a new DOvo for CarrieM's Christmas present, in mother of pearl. Not a cheap razor.
Good luck!
Thanks everyone for all your responses. Please keep them coming, I imagine at this price this has to be an attractive blade for people to buy and am hoping more have them to comment about!
My response may be premature, but here it is...
I just received that same razor from SRD on Friday. I've shaved with it 1.5 times (you'll understand shortly).
I've only been straight shaving for a month or so (a few more then a dozern shave perhaps?). My other straight is a vintage Bengal bought on the classifieds here. It shaved fine, but I was curious how sharp it was and how much of the shave was teh result of technique. The shaves have improved, but I can't do BBS yet.
I was excited to try a new blade sharpened by the legendary Lynn. I hate to say, but I may have had my expectations too high. I'm not willing to fault the Boker though. It is a more hollow grind then my Bengal, so it shaved different. I was expecting it to glide through the whiskers, but it felt a little like I was scraping them off. That was Saturday's shave.
I shaved again this morning, but this time I used the Bengal and the Boker on different sides of my face. I'm not willing to consider them pretty equal in sharpness (which is a credit to the SRP member's "shave ready" claim).
The Boker is very well made, although the scales are a little plain. I am satisfied with the purchase, but I think I'll need to get better at using this new razor. Maybe I'm going to end up preferring a more wedge style blade?
hmmm... I just reread this and thought about deleting it. I think I'm too much a newb to give much helpful feedback about the razor :p
Oh well, there's my very uninformed $0.02 on the Boker. I will make a suggestion though. With the current combo sale at SRP, you can get that razor with a 2" strop for only another $12 or so. That was too good a deal to pass up combined with the lifetime honing. I was using a homemade strop (which now that I have a "real" one, isn't too shabby), so I wanted a professionally made one. Now I'll forever have a Boker with a "perfect" edge while I teach myself to hone all my ebay finds. :)
Duke, did you strop Boker? Strop is essential to providing that final "finish" on your edge besides hones. Previously I didn't strop with one of my shave-ready razors and the shave wasn't as well as I'd hoped. It was only after stropping did the edge improve. Also a good technique in stropping is essential. There's a thread "Stropping is King" you might want to look into that in case you haven't already.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hayduke
I did not strop the new Boker for the first shave. I did strop it the second time, and the second shave did seem better then the first. I thought it was my improvement in technique for that particular razor, but I suppose it could have been that and the stropping. It's nice having a second razor now. I am starting to appreciate the differences. No shave today, so I'll see how it does tomorrow. This time, I'm not going to use both. I think I might start alternating for awhile to get a feel for the differences.Quote:
Originally Posted by SiRed8
Gentlemen,
Both new productions of Boker "Edelweise" and "King Cutter" are in my modest razor collection. I understand they are the same razors, really, except for the bone handle on the "Edelweiss" and the plastic on the "King Cutter." I like both razors.
If Lynn speaks well of the new Bokers, I take his comments for gospel.
The Dovo in question I do not have. I own other Dovos, however, and like them all.
Regards,
Obie