Thread: Better steel?

I have four vintage razors. My latest acquisition is a Boker King Cutter (Argentina). It’s probably from the 1980s. It shaves much better than my older vintage razors. I have been straight razor shaving for about a year now, so it’s not technique. My other razors are a Wostenholm Pipe razor, a Spear razor, made in Germany and imported in 1928, and a Swedish-made razor from the same period. Could it be that the steel in the Boker King Cutter is better?

Are they the same grind? Do they all have the same spine wear? Who honed the razors? These are factors that come into play.

Well there are lots of opinions about the topic of steel quality from varying times and places. There is also a lot of preference. Much of the preference is akin to truck loyalty. By that I mean one person may be a diehard Ford man and swear that Chevy is junk. Another person may swear exactly the opposite while the fact is both have good and bad qualities and neither is really a wrong choice. Most people seem to believe that the vintage steel was better but mostly that the craftsmanship was far superior. Theoretically the steel production should have improved over time to the exclusion of the matter of availability of raw materials. The main difference in my mind is that the older razors were made with a much more hands on approach. That doesn't necessarily mean better and it also depends on what your definition of "better" is. Hand blown stemware is nowhere near as.clean and precise as machine made stemware but that is part of the appeal.
Any and all of the razors you mentioned should shave as well if not better than your new one. As bouschie mentioned, there are many factors that affect that.
There is also the lemon effect. Off the same tree come exceptional and subpar pieces of fruit. Maybe your new razor is exceptional. Maybe the others are all lemons. Maybe the honing is spot on with it. Maybe you are just currently very enamored with it......any or all of those might be the case.

As stated - too many variables to determine the quality of steel from one to another.
I have found that the King Cutters typically are very thin and not overly durable in use but they take incredible edges. There is always a trade off between thinness vs durability of edge.
Perhaps it is just a thinner more acutely honed razor than your others.

Pics of said razors

ps: I have a nickname for Boker razors "Silk on a Stick" as a brand, they tend to provide silky smooth edges when honed correctly..

Originally Posted by bouschie

Are they the same grind? Do they all have the same spine wear? Who honed the razors? These are factors that come into play.

+1
As you said, there are several factors that come into play.

Heat treatment is another important one that has not been mentioned yet.
You can have the best steel in the world, but it is of no use if the heat treatment is botched.

There is also sometimes a tradeoff between a razor that is easy to hone but where the edge does not last that long and one that maintains the edge for a long time but is difficult to hone.
Which one should one describe as the “better steel”?

Just focussing one’s thoughts on “better steel” (better in which way?) overlooks too many important factors and this is why the whole “better steel” concept is just too narrow-sighted for me…

B.

There are few absolutes in this world. Maybe death and taxes. Everything is just a compromise. I dare say you could fabricate steel that could be so hard it would maintain an edge "forever" but it would be so brittle and fragile one shave would cause it to just fracture. On the other end you could produce a steel that is so easy to hone even a novice could succeed but you would have to hone it after every shave and maybe half way through a shave.

Everyone has their priorities and commercial products are made to satisfy the masses so compromises are engineered into the item. Maybe if you were a rich guy you could have things made to order to your personal specifications and then you would have the best for you.

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I used to say that the best razor was the one that I had just recently honed to perfection.

I don't what to sound like I'm picking on you but keep this in mind... After one year of straight razor shaving you have just started to learn.
Your shaves will get even better and more comfortable in the next few years. Your opinions will now start to change often on what you like most.
I'd bet money on it that after another 5 or 6 years your opinion will be completely different from what you think right now. Just keep on learning and trying different razors. It part of the fun.

Plus what everyone has said. LOL.

The Boker King Cutter was a good solid shaver and like most other famous brands and models, it went out of production when straight razors were no longer selling well. Then Boker got back into the razor business and the King Cutter was resurrected. Both vintage and new production King Cutters are nice razors. The new ones hone up easy, right out of the box. I think the early modern ones had nicer scales and were pinned up much better, is all. The vintage ones are as good as the hand that maintained them allowed them to be. But I would not say that Boker's steel is "better" than good Swedish steel. Of course steel quality is multidimensional. It is not a single metric. Simple hardness is certainly not the only factor. Otherwise nobody would like the 19th century Sheffield blades, and the Titan ACRO T.H-70 with it's almost impossibly hard steel would be in epic demand, which it most assuredly is not.

Grind and geometry are more important than the particular alloy used. Heat treatment is more important than the alloy, too, provided at least that the steel has sufficient carbon for formation of martensite in the hardening process. By just about every conceivable metric, a Gold Dollar is made of steel that next to Dovo or Boker or TI steel is junk, but it is harder than most old Sheffield steel, and it can be honed, and I can get just as good a shave with it as with my favorite premium razors. And with a lot of extra grinding, more than what is warranted by the value of the razor, I can turn it into quite a feisty shaver indeed. But that doesn't mean the steel is "good", only that it is "good enough". Hey, I love my Dovo Bismarcks, too, but not because they shave any better.

It's not just the bow. It is also the Indian. And one Indian might shoot better with one bow, and a different Indian might shoot better with another one. A reasonably skilled Indian might not really care what bow you give him. It's all about what you like, what seems to fit well between your hand and your face, what gives you confidence and responds well to your stropping and honing.

A year isn't really all that long, in the big picture. Your technique will continue to develop, if you allow it to do so. Keep trying with your other razors. There will probably be an epiphany when the lightbulb comes on and you see a nuance that you never saw before, and the razor just responds to your hand like the Boker does, now. Maybe hit your finisher some more, very lightly and patiently, and see if you can milk that edge a bit better, or if you are certain you have maxed out on your stones, try the diamond on balsa method. Be that versatile Indian who can shoot a lot of different bows well, even if he does have a favorite that makes his eyes light up when he grabs it and aims it at the nearest buffalo.

You like your King Cutter. It is a good razor by anybody's standards, so nobody is going to argue with you about it. Enjoy! See if you can find another, so you have a mini rotation of your own particular favorite brand and style of razor. Now, you know that it is mostly subjective. Don't let that spoil your enjoyment! You like what you like, and everyone should have a favorite. Or two. Or ten. They don't even have to be similar, either.