Thread: DOVO 5/8" Hollow Ground Black Straight Razor not getting smooth shave

Realy angers me to see all these newbs start off with a factory blade that is supposed to be shave ready and is not.
Than they have to tie up another week or so,pay the toke to get the blade where it should be.
Buy your razors from one of our trusted vendors/members folks.

When it comes time to buy another I will. I assume that it is good practice to have two blades and switch between them as you have to send one off to get honed.

In the meantime until I get this thing honed, I was planning on getting a shavette to use disposable blades. One this will allow me to continue practicing and mastering this technique and two, I do travel a bit for my profession so makes sense to be able to take something with me.

DOVO is quite well known for their factory edges not being shave ready. Once you do get it professionally honed, you can also get what's called a Barber's Hone, a small but aggressive hone used for monthly touchups. Once you get one of those, you won't need to send it out regularly. Assuming that your honing technique is okay and your razor doesn't get damaged through other means (chips, cracks, dings, drops, etc)

I'd need someone to teach me how to do that.

The problem with the Art Of Shaving stores is that their employees don't know how to shave so they cannot properly advise their customers and have no idea what shave ready means.

For refreshing with a barber hone, you just do 4-6 light round trip strokes. Just about any shaving video will demonstrate a basic x stroke, which is all you'll need to do to maintain your razor after it is oroperly honed.

There are a lot of folks in the NC area that can assist. Send me a PM if you have any questions. I'm in the Raleigh area, but there are folks all over the state.