Jacobs "Damascus Steel" Christmas Gift... is it useless?

Hey there folks.

A few months ago my girlfriend seemed hot on the idea of getting me a straight razor for Christmas. Being the savvy dude that I am, I looked into them a bit, found this forum, read some stuff, and said "hey, gf, go to this website and poke around the forums a bit before you buy something and get ripped off."

Now, Christmas rolls around, and I get something like this:

http://i.ebayimg.com/08/!B7+CoPQBGk~$(KGrHqV,!hsEzMl!gCfOBM1wiZvlzQ~~_12.JPG

a Jacobs "Damascus" straight razor. It looks pretty cool. Then I hop online and find some wary forum posters (on a different forum) saying they doubt it is "shave worthy" and Damascus steel ought to probably be avoided, although no one there had tried this type of razor.

Further, I can't find anything much else about Jacobs razors, Damascus or otherwise.

Do any of you know anything about these? I'm a total noob, but I'm a bit wary of this thing, especially about spending money getting it honed if it's not going to do anything approaching a good shave.

Thoughts? Might I contact the ebay seller she bought it from (or have her do so) and try to return it? I just hate to see my sweet girlfriend disappointed, and I know she's very excited to give me this gift (and I was excited to receive it!)

Regards,

apeman.

I am only an amateur but I do not see why damascus steel should not be able to give you a good shave seeing as there are very highly regarded damascus stell razors such as Tim Zowada's and such. It is hard to tell from the pictures if it is worth buying or not since the edge is not clearly visible. Perhaps a seasoned honer like Larry Andreassen at whippeddog.com can give you better advice. Good luck. I hope you will post here again once you got your gear assembled. Larry can help you with that too by the way. Straight shaving is a great deal of fun.

Oh and I almost forgot: welcome to B&B!

That's a link to an active sale, a big "no no" around these parts.

Mod's should be along shortly to kill this.

thubbard76 said:

That's a link to an active sale, a big "no no" around these parts.

Mod's should be along shortly to kill this.

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Thank you. I edited. Sorry about that.

Here I'll help you out. Here are the pictures from that link. I say send it to a honemeister. He will hone it for you for about 20.00 if he thinks it's crap or unhonable he will tell you. I say give it a shot. It may be a great shaver.

Here is a link for the honemeisters that are trusted on this site. Good Luck

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=44244&highlight=honemeister+list

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Gustav said:

I am only an amateur but I do not see why damascus steel should not be able to give you a good shave seeing as there are very highly regarded damascus stell razors such as Tim Zowada's and such. It is hard to tell from the pictures if it is worth buying or not since the edge is not clearly visible. Perhaps a seasoned honer like Larry Andreassen at whippeddog.com can give you better advice. Good luck. I hope you will post here again once you got your gear assembled. Larry can help you with that too by the way. Straight shaving is a great deal of fun.

Click to expand...

Yeah; the problem is that this is not legit "damascus steel" but some sort of patterned steel or something I am not entirely familiar with but read about briefly elsewhere. It was basically a warning not to buy them especially at this low price range.

Thanks for the link & welcome!

ApeMan said:

Thank you. I edited. Sorry about that.

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No problemo!

If no one had any experience with them then I wouldn't ever worry about what they say. Send it off to someone who can hone it and you just never no.

azmark said:

If no one had any experience with them then I wouldn't ever worry about what they say. Send it off to someone who can hone it and you just never no.

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Thanks, that's the plan. The problem is that I'm not super optimistic, as the only experience with the cheap "Damascus" blades was all negative, and the consensus was that they only exist as a way to look pretty and scam noobs.

I contacted a guy on here who hones and happens to be in my city. If he doesn't get back to me soon I'll send it off and cross my fingers.

I'll add that this is a brand new razor. It's unsettling that the company has virtually zero internet presence outside of a couple ebay sellers.

Unfortunately the majority of Damascus blades sold on ebay are junk. They are poor quality steel and not capable of being honed to an edge capable of shaving with. I think that yours might be one of them. A Damascus blade from a custom straight razor maker like Tim Zowada will set you back north of $1,000 so that should give you an idea of the quality difference.
It's not going to cost you a fortune to get it honed and try it though. At worst, you'll have a nice display piece.

Welcome to B&B!

The best way to know this is to buy it and send it out to a honemeister. If you want to play it safe, you could get a Dovo (will need to be honed too by a honemeister to be shave ready) or a vintage straight...

What I would do if I was in your shoes, I would look on B/S/T (buy/sell/trade) section of this forum and buy a shave ready straight. You will need a strop with the razor and you should be all set.

This page could help: http://wiki.badgerandblade.com/index.php/Getting_started_wetshaving

If it were me I'd have to get it honed just out of curiosity. And report back to us!

I agree with many other members above that you will never know until you get this baby honed up. It might actually shave you but I doubt the blade will be able to hold its edge for long. I also agree with John that in the worst case you have a nice display piece (or letter opener). Further, the scales might be reusable for another straight if you had to restore a vintage chopper or something.

I had a look at the blade that you are showing on eBay and I have to side with Johnmrson, I wouldn't buy it. The reason is with the seller's feedback, there were complaints on the quality of the blade. Try Buy/Sell/Trade on this forum, you will get a much much better deal!

I saw these too, and found an article on SRP that they do not take an edge. I have never used one, but there was a thread about it I dont know if posting a link to another forum is ok or not but if you do a search there, it should pop up.

I'd be interested to see better pictures of the razor, ones that shed some light on the grind.

Yeah, I'm going to have it honed up and hope for the best. It just bites that I'll most likely end up having to tell my girlfriend she got hosed by this ebay seller. Oh well!

We all like to think there are bargains out there and the new $25 razor will shave as good as gold but that rarely happens. There are some blades out there that though not the best quality do shave pretty good. I don't think yours is one of them. I don't know what you paid for it but if it's cheap you don't have much to lose so as they say take the bullet for the rest of us and report back. Who knows maybe you'll prove us all wrong and find a gem.

I seem to recall someone in SRP forums contacting the seller and finding out these were machine-made in Pakistan. Meaning it's an almost certainty that they won't take a good edge. They're for display. I would save my $20 on the honing if I were you. You got a very handsome box cutter for Christmas. It's the thought that counts.