Thread: Double Arrow Quality ?????

OK guys we have been buying into the notion that these are OK, and hey I have honed a couple dozen and they are OK, not great, not even good, but they do give a passable shave, and for the price??? wow!!! what a deal ... I bought into that, until today... This is what I found after having some fitting problems on scales.... Hey I by no means think that I am perfect but I have made a few sets of scales, OK a few hundred sets, and every now and then you do find a warped tang/spine and you actually question your own ability to cut a piece of wood straight

Here is what I found on just checking 4 DA's against a known flat surface, I am holding the tang flat against the brass with my thumb look at not only the deflection away from the brass but also the curvature in the grind.... 1 out of 4 is pretty straight....

Pic #1 is OK then look as they get worse #3 and #4 are way way off

Compensate.

And I don't mean like the way my dad bought a camaro and took up the drums when he turned 48.

Aha Grasshopper..... You thought you'd get off easy with simply throwing some scales on a $12 razor?


C'mon now. Anybody can get a set of scales on a razor with a straight tang. Re-scaling a DA is what seperates the men from the boys....




I use a vice, and coerce that tang into straightening out like this:

How far to go, and how far is too far is up to you....

Mines straight ! In fact it's a 'straight razor'

You know, a lot of my vintage razors (mostly 1850-1875 sheffield) are only parallel to the tang on one side, and the other side is angled away at anywhere from 5 to 15 degrees. Is it a quality issue or just an old method of manufacture, or is that the same thing?

That 3rd photo is pretty bad though... lol

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

You know, a lot of my vintage razors (mostly 1850-1875 sheffield) are only parallel to the tang on one side, and the other side is angled away at anywhere from 5 to 15 degrees. Is it a quality issue or just an old method of manufacture, or is that the same thing?

That 3rd photo is pretty bad though... lol

On the old razors it seems that one side was grinded with a taper and the other was not.

On the DAs it appears pretty random, and is most like a result of the way they were cast/banged out.

Although I do appreciate the ideas of how to get the scales on there, Seraphim you are the second person to tell me that they are actually tweaking the tang in a vice......I find that amazing in it's self...
What I would have appreciated even more was a heads up in the first place...

So now that the bent razor secret is out of the bag has anyone tracked the percentage of good to bad razors?????

Also the offset tang is only part of the problem here, these things have some serious grind issues too....

And although I agree it is a cheap razor, when people start laying out money to have us customize these things they should really know what they are getting into...

I for one am now putting this on the same list as the Wapi as in "Sorry I don't do work on them anymore"

Is Dovo and TI going on the list too ?
I've heard of a few dodgy Dovo's you know !

Originally Posted by littlesilverbladefromwale

Is Dovo and TI going on the list too ?
I've heard of a few dodgy Dovo's you know !

Lets hope they never let it slip that bad,,,,,

I never work on other people's razors, as I'd rather own it until I'm satisfied with it, and then sell it. That's why I don't do re-sclaes, etc- there's always a number of variables when someone sends you a razor.

The only grind issues I have run into is the spine bevel can be a bit wide near the tang. Some work on the DMT600 takes care of that in a jiffy. I don't view that as a deal breaker.

The more important (in my mind) master grind of the blade itself I have never had an issue with. The cutting edge hones evenly all along the length (something the Wapis did not have, those razors the master grind was total crap, warped, uneven, you name it).



And I indeed had three, yes three brandy-new Dovos that were so badly warped they were un-honable. Those are $140 razors!

You can see below the Dovo in question (or rather one of the three that had EXACTLY the same warpage...), the hone made contact only on the toe and heel, nowhere along the middle. The other side was the opposite, only in the middle, and not on the toe and heel.

I'm not complaining about the issues I have seen with the DAs,as they have all been readily remedied.