Art Of Shaving Theirs Issard 5/8 SR

So I recently picked up the Art Of Shaving's 5/8 razor made by TI, it came in a nice leather sleeve and seemed like a nice razor.

I tried shaving with it and was unimpressed with the quality of the save, but I assumed it was my lack of experience with the SR creating the problems. Recently I sent it out to Lynn to get it honed and I was very surprised when he replied back that the razor had a LOT of uneven spine wear, on a brand new blade... (Nothing he cannot fix however)

Lucky for me it's in the hands of the master and will be a sweet shaver once he's done working his magic on it, but I am disappointed that the blade had that issue, while I understand that new razors may not be truly "Shave Ready" I would expect at least that the spine was even and solid....

I would check with AoS.....there are a few threads on here about how good there customer service can be when you are not happy with the product. Just a thought. Although now that it's being brought to shave ready you may not care since the shave will be infinitely better!

I recently bought the same razor. It looks really nice but is not shave ready. I am a new straight razor user so it took me a few shaves to determine that it was not solely bad technique, it just isn't sharp enough. I'm going to have to send it out to have it honed as well. I wish I had done a little more research, as I could have bought a nice shave ready straight the first time around for the same money.

I just ordered a Dovo 6/8 Carbon from SRD :) THAT one will be shave ready out of the box

Holy crap, I just called AOS customer service, and told them what happened, they are sending me a check to cover the cost of having Lynn hone the razor!

I am VERY impressed!!!

That's pretty great!! I haven't bought a razor from them nut the salesmen at the one by me really helped me out when I was first getting into straights!

Yeah, I am blown away.

I was expecting them to say "Well Sir you can return it and we can give you another razor" but when I explained I already paid to have it honed they offered this instead..

Somebody at AoS made the right call, bad publicity is the last thing they would want. Hopefully one of these days they'll decide to get their razors honed before they sell them, although for a big chain like them I can't see how it can work. Or may be they could nudge TI into improving the factory edges.
After all it used to be standard back in the days.
I know, wishful thinking, but wouldn't it be nice if it happens.

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Originally Posted by mcgyver74

Holy crap, I just called AOS customer service, and told them what happened, they are sending me a check to cover the cost of having Lynn hone the razor!

I am VERY impressed!!!

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Wow that is very good to hear! I hadn't even considered calling them about it. I will have to do the same. Great news!

I recently went to two local Art of Shaving stores and was unimpressed--so I'm glad you had a good experience with them.

Well, they do have somewhat of a limited selection (*4 straights and 5 DE's) and about 4 different lines of cream/ASB's but I found that of the 2 stores I went to, they seemed genuinely interested in shaving. This was just the icing on the cake, I will def be a future customer after this :)

I went looking for Barbicide and a barber's hone. The lady in the first store wasn't bad. I asked her about the two things I was looking for, and inquired as to whether or not they did any honing on site. She wasn't able to help and didn't seem overly excited that I didn't want to buy anything they had--but she wasn't rude. The second one I went to the man was outright rude (in my opinion), he gave me a disgusted look and made a snide remark about how AoS wasn't "just some barber supply store".

Still, I'm glad that you had a positive experience and I hope that it becomes a trend.

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Originally Posted by Duzzy

I went looking for Barbicide and a barber's hone. The lady in the first store wasn't bad. I asked her about the two things I was looking for, and inquired as to whether or not they did any honing on site. She wasn't able to help and didn't seem overly excited that I didn't want to buy anything they had--but she wasn't rude. The second one I went to the man was outright rude (in my opinion), he gave me a disgusted look and made a snide remark about how AoS wasn't "just some barber supply store".

Still, I'm glad that you had a positive experience and I hope that it becomes a trend.

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Well, to be fair, barbicide is a commercial product sold at barber supply shops. As to the barber hone, I don't think anyone currently makes them :o.

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Originally Posted by bharner

Well, to be fair, barbicide is a commercial product sold at barber supply shops. As to the barber hone, I don't think anyone currently makes them :o.

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Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not faulting them for not carrying a product--I was trying to clarify what I was unimpressed with (which was the attitudes of the sales associates).

(Also, if you are Lloyd R. Harner III, who goes by Butch Harner, I saw some of Coop's photographs of your razors. They're simply beautiful. If not, please disregard.)

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Originally Posted by Duzzy

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not faulting them for not carrying a product--I was trying to clarify what I was unimpressed with (which was the attitudes of the sales associates).

(Also, if you are Lloyd R. Harner III, who goes by Butch Harner, I saw some of Coop's photographs of your razors. They're simply beautiful. If not, please disregard.)

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I was just giving you a hard time:). I've never been to an AOS but have shopped at places who pride themselves in carrying items of a certain quality. It's frustrating to ask about items you know they probably don't carry but should know where to find and be met with rudeness when they consider those products to be below them.

And sadly, I'm not Butch. I've been oggling his razors for some time now but haven't convinced SWMBO to let me get one. I should try and do some genealogy and see if I'm related. It'd be neat to be related to someone who turns out such nice pieces.

Harner makes some gorgeous blades, some of them are on my list for my SRAD :)