Crescent City Razors News for September 2020

Still not a lot to report. I have a few NOS Herder blades and scales coming. No idea what condition they are actually in, or how much final grinding has been done. I know that most of these have at least been heat treated and tempered. Meh. They were cheap. I will get around to fixing them up some day and putting up a listing. I might get some more, if that works out. I think I can sell them pretty cheap, and put some Solingen steel in low budget shavers' hands, that will for all practical purposes be brand new razors.

Still working on getting my horn scale sets and my camel bone slabs from India. The bone I think will ship in a few days. My horn guy just received the razor I sent a month ago, and I will see if he is capable of making a decent set of scales for it. The first sample was totally unsatisfactory in every way but the price was nice so I figured maybe with a little encouragement and direction, I would give him a chance to supply me. Anyway, soon I will be able to put some nice shoes on all those unbranded and unscaled P81 blades. I honestly think they will sell fairly well. Now, if I could get my horn guy to make scales for me out of the bone, that would be even better.

Sales have been very slow these last two weeks for some reason. I may have to drop my prices back down a bit. I had to raise them a little to slow down the orders and now I have to find just the right balance to give me a few orders but not a lot of orders every week.

No progress on the twin grinder. Been very busy fitting out the boat and trading stocks and ETFs. I will maybe start trading the Micro E-Mini Futures, not sure yet. Anyway been really really busy and I really really need to get some more razors honed and ready to ship. I am thinking about doing all of the 666 razors and running a special on them. Same with the 66 model. I want to clear the shelves a bit, and end up with just the rebranded and rescaled P81 razors, the stock P81s, and maybe the Herders if I can get them in quantity and they are worth prepping for sale. Soon, I PROMISE, I will have some razor production going in-house. I definitely want to keep the P81 sales alive because it really is not a bad razor for a beginner on a tight budget but do I really need to have 4 or 5 models of GD? I don't think so. The P81 is the easiest to work with and the best bang for the buck, so that's the one I want to concentrate on, out of the Gold Dollars.

I still haven't had a strop-making day since July. Well, nobody has been asking for them. I don't have any made, well except a couple, so I haven't listed them on fleabay. Since I haven't listed them on fleabay, no sales. If there are no sales, why make them? LOL honestly I have just been too busy. The problem with being retired is you don't get days off anymore.

So anyway, watch the site, and watch my ebay listings, cause when I have a bunch more honed I will probably be dropping the prices a couple of bucks. I will announce here when I have anything fancier to sell.

One of my camel bone suppliers has shipped my order. I have 100 slabs coming via DHL from India. I have another 100 pieces from another guy that should ship today. My horn scale supplier still has not shown me a workable prototype yet. He doesn't understand why a wedge is needed instead of a hyooooge wide spacer but at least now he has my sample razor to work from. I am anxious to see how this works out, because the price for the complete scale sets is very low. I received the Herder blanks and scales. I will take them into the shop on Monday and see if they have been hardened or not. They seem to just be raw drop forgings, not ground at all. So no free lunch... but maybe I can do something with them. Orders are picking up again for some reason. Very strange. I should chart them and see what kind of trend the sales numbers correlate with. Now I got ANOTHER job, getting the house ready for re-appraisal so the Mrs can drop her P&I insurance and save us a few hundred bucks a year. And I need to spend more time trading and I need to get some stuff done in the shop, like the mythical twin grinder, and I need to get the boat's 120VAC system wired and I REALLY need to get some more razors honed like right now. Sometimes I wish I was still working. I always had time to get stuff done. Guys, DON'T RETIRE!!!!! You will be too dam busy to enjoy it!!! Well, the world is on hold for a few hours. Today is a fishing day. First one in a year.

I agree about not retiring, been busier since I retired even though I'm disabled. With all the stuff I've had to do since retiring I don't know how I got anything done when I was working full time.............

That sounds like a lot of Bone..Is it for the Gold Dollars?

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Originally Posted by JOB15

That sounds like a lot of Bone..Is it for the Gold Dollars?

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Yeah, most of it. For the 100 unbranded GD P81 blanks I just got in last month. I will do a little grinding and polishing and then put some nice bone or horn shoes on them, hone them, etch them with a logo, and see what I can get for them. I may sell some bone, if there are inquiries. When I am finally making my own blades I want to do some in bone, some horn, some ebony. While I do want to always have some stock Gold Dollars to sell shave ready to newbies with tight budgets, I want to eventually focus my efforts mostly on razors made in-house and keep the stock GDs (one model only) in stock as sort of a sideline and an entry point. The rebranded and reworked Gold Dollars with upmarket scales might be a thing well into the future, or might not. Depends on what the market tells me and what an hour's work on them gets me.

If I sell bone slabs I will probably also eventually sell horn and ebony slabs, too. I have absolutely no intentions of selling finished scale sets unless sourced overseas. My time is too valuable to me to sell finished scale sets for what they are going for. I will only be making them for my razors, to ensure correct fit and finish.

Do you have a picture of the NOS Herder blades? The ones I've seen and used were not heat treated, however that is fairly easy to do. It heat treats and grinds about like 1095. The bigger issues is that they are not finish ground and you need about a 2" wheel to match the factory profile.

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Originally Posted by DVW

Do you have a picture of the NOS Herder blades? The ones I've seen and used were not heat treated, however that is fairly easy to do. It heat treats and grinds about like 1095. The bigger issues is that they are not finish ground and you need about a 2" wheel to match the factory profile.

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I still haven't got them into the shop yet for the file test. Been busy all day securing the boat for Hurricane Sally and I am exhausted. They are closing the floodgates tomorrow so I had to do everything today. About like 1095, you say? Cool. Check my recipe book, I guess. As for the wheel, I have the perfect answer... my 4" x 36" Harbor Freight stationary belt sander is about right for that. I do wish I already had my twin grinder set up... that would make it nice. But one side at a time is how I have been doing it, so I guess I can do it three more times.

I don't have good light for pics. It is dark where I am. But I got them from Smoky Mountain Knife Works. www.smkw.com or Knifecave.com one or the other will getcha there.

Meh. If I have to heat treat it too, well I guess it is still worth $9.95 since it comes with some kinda nice scales. I was hoping it was already tempered and everything, lacking just the final grinding.

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Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors

I still haven't got them into the shop yet for the file test. Been busy all day securing the boat for Hurricane Sally and I am exhausted. They are closing the floodgates tomorrow so I had to do everything today. About like 1095, you say? Cool. Check my recipe book, I guess. As for the wheel, I have the perfect answer... my 4" x 36" Harbor Freight stationary belt sander is about right for that. I do wish I already had my twin grinder set up... that would make it nice. But one side at a time is how I have been doing it, so I guess I can do it three more times.

I don't have good light for pics. It is dark where I am. But I got them from Smoky Mountain Knife Works. www.smkw.com or Knifecave.com one or the other will getcha there.

Meh. If I have to heat treat it too, well I guess it is still worth $9.95 since it comes with some kinda nice scales. I was hoping it was already tempered and everything, lacking just the final grinding.

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If you got them at SMKW they are not heat treated. I've done four of them and they are only drop forged to a rough shape. The scales are okay, but the wedge isn't that great and neither are the pins. I don't think they were the real high dollar model even when they were new. On the plus side, they used good steel and they made great shavers once I figured out the heat treat. For $10 they are a bargain. I may buy some more since they are so fast to complete.

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Nice work. I like straight edges, too. Mine have the scales like your bottom pic.

One of my bone shipments arrived just now.
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Included were a few sample pieces. I don't know why all those Middle Eastern suppliers think straight razors are so hyoooge. The sample scales dwarf a modified GD in the pic below or the stock #66 at the bottom of the pic. I would still have to make scales out of the scales! I will probably end up sending him a sample to copy. This guy does not want to sell plain white bone scales, either, and I don't want all that dyed and jigged stuff. The oxbone round I will probably make into a brush handle. Anyway now I got plenty of bone to get started with. All I need is the time.
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I have had a few Gold Dollar and Double Arrow razors in the past that would not lay flat on the hone which would prevent them from being honed properly. Once the problem was fixed with a little grinding and they were properly honed they are pretty good shaving razors and are good inexpensive candidates for new straight razor shavers.

Good luck and much success!

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Originally Posted by DoughBoy68

I have had a few Gold Dollar and Double Arrow razors in the past that would not lay flat on the hone which would prevent them from being honed properly. Once the problem was fixed with a little grinding and they were properly honed they are pretty good shaving razors and are good inexpensive candidates for new straight razor shavers.

Good luck and much success!

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They are getting better, actually. Or maybe I should say not as bad as before. Try a new P81 some time. It is easier to get the average P81 ready to use than any of the three entry level Dovos I have tried.

I well remember the bad ol days when a Dremel was your most important Gold Dollar honing tool. I was buying 1/2" sanding drums by the sack on ebay. Oh, those pesky stabilizers!

I don't know what happened yesterday evening. Four orders in one day. Do I HAVE to raise my prices again? It would be a shame. Maybe I should take down my fleabay listings and get a couple hundred razors honed before I put them back up again. Ideally I would like to move maybe 3 or 4 razors a week, TBH. I got a lot of other things to do besides razors and I don't want this to be like a job. My www.crescentcityrazors.com website only generates a couple of sales a week at most. It's those Ebayers who are driving me crazy. A couple weeks ago I only had one order for the week and I was wondering if I should drop my prices. Three or four razors a week, one or two runs to the post office, works out about right for me. Keeps it kinda fun. But then I get comfortable and suddenly I have to ship 20 razors in a week and it turns into WORK! I know some of you guys who hone or restore or repair a dozen razors a day will laugh at that, but I am not trying to make a living from it and this isn't meant to be a job for me.

I think I can multitask a little, though. Mrs Monster kindly pointed out that while I am trading, I don't have to keep my eyes glued to the screen every second, and why don't I hone razors while I am between sending buy or sell orders to the broker? I can just glance at my charts every few laps and get some razors honed while I make (or lose) money on my stocks and futures and stuff. Yeah I been branching into futures but that's another thing. Anyway so maybe I can get an extra dozen razors honed during my trading hours every week. That would be cool. Now if Mrs. Monster will buy us a self driving Tesla, I can hone on the way to the post office. hone, strop, sanitize, pack, and label! Someone remind me I owe Elon Musk a Gold Dollar for making that possible. Come to think of it, now that I have air conditioning on the boat, I suppose I could put a honing kit together for the boat and hone a few while I am retreating from the domestic untranquility of me and Mrs Monster being cooped up in the house and her unable to go to One Shell Square for work. I plan on spending a night or two every week on the boat (burglars, you just guess which nights if you want a closeup view down the bore of a repro 1858 Remington .44) so I can hone up a few, then, while I am watching all the super important stuff on youtube or enjoying an oldfashioned with my nabes at the marina. Anyway I need to either slow down sales or increase output, one or the other. And I will confess to some small amount of greed, so...

Just had a long and excruciating conversation with my prospective horn scale supplier. I just can't get him to grasp the concept of a wedge instead of a flat spacer. I take pics, blow them up and annotate them with text and arrows and he still doesn't get it, nor why it is a bad thing for scales to be an inch too long. So, next week I will bite the bullet and make some bone scales and wedges. No, none for sale. They go on my razors. I may offer some bone slabs for sale when the next shipment arrives. I know some of you here will be wanting some camel bone when you see pics of the finished scales. That stuff really does make attractive scales.

I have given up on the prefab horn scales. The guy in India that I have been negotiating with simply doesn't get it. One problem is he is absolutely clearly not familiar with straight razors. He is pretty good at making a piece of horn look like razor scales, but not the design and dimensions required for a good fit to a standard straight razor. I thought I was making some progress in teaching him, when he showed me pics of a set with an actual wedge, but he pinned my sample razor that I sent him between the scales and the tips are almost a half inch too long and the scales do not curve enough to ensure that the blade does not protrude through the bottom of the scales. No biggie... I can work with him on that, right? His design is improving, right? But we started talking about price, and apparently scales that can actually be pinned to a razor are "custom" and "more difficult", and he wants to charge more than his list price. So I told him to get lost, I am done with him. His listed price was incredibly low which was one reason I thought buying prefab horn scales might work out really well. I wasted a lot of time, trying to teach him to make a product that is actually useful, to his as well as my benefit. Now, if he precisely duplicates the sample he made, he can ALMOST make razor scales that can actually be used. So for me, no more Indian suppliers for finished or partly finished products or components. This has been quite frustrating and I am actually relieved now that it is no longer in the works.

On the other front, I have another shipment of camel bone arriving today. Looking forward to seeing it and comparing it to the other shipment. I am probably not trading today, as I almost never sell short and the market is in decline this morning. I have been trading only NASDAQ futures and so I need a general up trending market in order to make decent money. BUT today is a brew day as my beer is running low. Maybe I will have some time to spend in the shop today but probably tomorrow I will rough out some camel bone scales and maybe do some grinding on one of the Herder blades as well as a few of the unbranded GD blanks. I still have to give the Herder blanks a file test but I am thinking that they are not yet heat treated so some time soon I will devote a full day to my first HT session with my new electric kiln and the 5 gallon bucket of Park 50 that has been taking up space for the last two years, unopened. Not sure if I will be selling the Herders or not. If not, good opportunity for someone else. $10 for a quality forged blank and a set of finished bone scales is a pretty good start at an inexpensive razor that should sell for Dovo BQ prices. Too bad they are not already Solingen stamped, huh?

I give you a huge thumbs up for your ambition, resourcefulness and capitalistic spirit. However, those all sound like typical problems when dealing with Chinese and Indian importers.

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Originally Posted by DVW

I give you a huge thumbs up for your ambition, resourcefulness and capitalistic spirit. However, those all sound like typical problems when dealing with Chinese and Indian importers.

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Very typical.

... and, they are HERE, my second 100pc shipment of camel bone. So that's two Indian sellers who can furnish a product to meet the buyer's needs, and conduct business properly and honestly. Compared to the horn guy who can do neither and is more interested in squeezing every cent out of a deal than in outperforming other vendors with good product and good service. Okay, I'm done ranting about the horn guy. Loving the bone. I will be making some scales very very soon.

I made some scales in horn and bone. At the time I had 2 dogs. And the both of them had their noses up the minute you step in the house(sanding and polishing done in outdoor shed). And don't put a pair down within reach. They will chew em up. Don't ask me how I know.

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Originally Posted by Bill31521

I made some scales in horn and bone. At the time I had 2 dogs. And the both of them had their noses up the minute you step in the house(sanding and polishing done in outdoor shed). And don't put a pair down within reach. They will chew em up. Don't ask me how I know.

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LOL I feel your pain! Actually, no I don't cause that is funny as hell!

Gold Monkey 666 razors are back in stock. Been so busy I haven't been honing any, and I got behind. Right now I think I am out of P81 but I will hone up a few tomorrow.