i dunno..... but 7$ is just exorbitant.....
My "Gold Slash" 7 day set
- Thread starter Slash McCoy
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Dammit, Seraphim, stop peeing in our pipe dream pool 
Dammit, Seraphim, stop peeing in our pipe dream pool
OK, I'll tell you the true story now:
On one of my business trips to Japan I hopped a slow boat to China, haggled with the Ningbo sales guy of a business dinner of Chinese moonshine hooch and fried dog I talked him down to 39 cents a razor. I booked passage on a junk headed to Bora Bora where I worked on my tan and went diving for fresh abalone.
That's more like it!
good post!
Anyone tried to work on any of the others cheap on line razors??
http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Wood-...53OG/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1326422330&sr=8-7
http://www.amazon.com/Kriegar-Pakaw...GM/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1326422330&sr=8-14
http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Wood-...53OG/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1326422330&sr=8-7
http://www.amazon.com/Kriegar-Pakaw...GM/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1326422330&sr=8-14
- Thread starter
- #87
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
I say give them a miss. But if you go for it, let us know how you made out.
Many, if not most razors in this price range are pure junk. The steel simply will not support a shaving edge. They make dandy letter openers, though. You can use one to open your packages of Gold Dollars when they arrive from Hong Kong. But most of them, you can't shave with. Particularly the Pakistani razors. They look nice but they won't hone up. The edges just crumble. What sets the Gold Dollar / Double Arrow / Gold Monkey razors apart is the steel is decent.
I read the same diagnostic on other forum... I'll try to get some and work on them
Don't believe everything (anything?) you may read over on that other forum.
How many of you have actually tried to hone up a Pakistani razor? Easy enough to say " they won't hone up. The edges just crumble", but is that your own experience, or simply going by hearsay and what the "experts" (who may also have a stake in selling you Dovos...) say?
I had two Pakistani Selective razors fall into my grubby mitts, and they honed up just fine. See here:
Selective
Other than those two, I have no other experience with Pakistani razors, but they were ceratinly not "garbage".
Feedback from others who tried those razors in here:
Cheap SOBs
Please, let's comment on our own experiences, not simply propagating old wives tales we've heard from an interwebs forum. If you've tried a Pakistani razor, and it was juunk, sure tell us that. If you haven't tried one, but heard they were junk from someone else, please don't simply pass that second hand information on as if it were fact. Same goes for stainless razors being harder to hone than carbon, roundpoint being safer than squarepoints, 5/8th razor being better for beginners than 7/8ths, etc, etc...
i tried one.... it possessed my best friend alvin.... it made him do crazy things..... avoid them!!!
see what it did to my happy family??
*(mods please feel free to delete this if it offends... it is simply meant as humor)
see what it did to my happy family??
*(mods please feel free to delete this if it offends... it is simply meant as humor)
Looks like a typical barbershop shave.
- Thread starter
- #92
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
i tried one.... it possessed my best friend alvin.... it made him do crazy things..... avoid them!!!
see what it did to my happy family??
*(mods please feel free to delete this if it offends... it is simply meant as humor)
Since the little purple fella is smiling, I can only assume that Alvin is giving him one very fine shave with that Gold Dollar.
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- #93
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Until yesterday, I never read anything at all on that other forum. (I joined and got banned for life after 9 replies to ongoing threads there. Maybe it was my screen name: "GoldDollarGuy"?) I honed up a bunch of ZeePks and only one would shave. It was stamped "Solingen" but personally I think it was stamped in Pakistan. It was not up to the performance of any solingen blade in my memory. That one did shave, though, after a fashion. I tried one each of several other brands... a Master, a Selective, a B&B (Barber & Beauty) and a couple others, and the results were dismal. Most would shave a little bit and then poop out on me. Granted, I did not know as much about honing back then as I do now, but I was putting shaving edges on my ebay rescues okay. And I agree with your asessment that a LOT of steel has to go away before you get down to the bevel. Wow... I was glad to have those cheap diamond plates from Harbor Freight!
The pics of the Selective show a stunning edge. If it were April 1st I would be laughing, but I am sure you are on the up and up. So I got to ask you this... did you shave with it? Several times? If so, I will back off from my harsh dismissal of those things. And thanks for sharing. I always enjoy your razor porn.
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hey! I picked up a big o' "___KISTA_" (or something like that...you can barely make out the letters) 7/8 or 8/8 at an antique shop super cheap last summer, but haven't rescaled it since I didn't want to spend the work to get a dud. You've encouraged me to just hone it as a nekked blade and see how it goes...not sure why I haven't in the past. Things just get lost in my mind, thanks for resurrecting it. I'll report back at some point (in it's own thread, I'm sure).
I shaved with it three times, if I recall correctly. Same result each time.
And thanks for clarifying that your opinion was indeed firmed via actual experience, that counts for alot.
My experience so far:
GDs: 77 out of 80 (estimate) able to take a shave ready edge
Selective cheap: 2 for two shave ready edge ability.
And thanks for clarifying that your opinion was indeed firmed via actual experience, that counts for alot.
My experience so far:
GDs: 77 out of 80 (estimate) able to take a shave ready edge
Selective cheap: 2 for two shave ready edge ability.
I figure I may as well add my two cents to Seraphim's comments about Pakistani razors. As always, YMMV.
I talked a Pakistani vendor into sending me half a dozen straight razors. From this particular vendor, all of the regular (carbon?) steel razors would not take an edge. I could see the metal coming off in the slurry on the hone and it simply wouldn't create a sharp bevel no matter what tricks I pulled. The Damascus razors he send were extremely difficult to hone because of the design of the blade. If you laid it flat on the hone, the position of the spine made it so the edge didn't even touch the hone. Perhaps one of those guys that shave with meat cleavers and axes could hone it, but no luck for me. A coworker asked me to sharpen his straight razor, it was a Pakistani that couldn't hold an edge.
While I have no doubt that there are some Pakistani razors that make great shavers, as a general rule I think they should be avoided. It is pretty awesome when we can find a particular brand that makes decent razors though, such as the GDs.
Plus, not everyone has the required tools to turn these junk razors into shaving wonders. I wouldn't recommend a gold dollar to a complete noob due to the tools and skills required to make them shave worthy.
I talked a Pakistani vendor into sending me half a dozen straight razors. From this particular vendor, all of the regular (carbon?) steel razors would not take an edge. I could see the metal coming off in the slurry on the hone and it simply wouldn't create a sharp bevel no matter what tricks I pulled. The Damascus razors he send were extremely difficult to hone because of the design of the blade. If you laid it flat on the hone, the position of the spine made it so the edge didn't even touch the hone. Perhaps one of those guys that shave with meat cleavers and axes could hone it, but no luck for me. A coworker asked me to sharpen his straight razor, it was a Pakistani that couldn't hold an edge.
While I have no doubt that there are some Pakistani razors that make great shavers, as a general rule I think they should be avoided. It is pretty awesome when we can find a particular brand that makes decent razors though, such as the GDs.
Plus, not everyone has the required tools to turn these junk razors into shaving wonders. I wouldn't recommend a gold dollar to a complete noob due to the tools and skills required to make them shave worthy.
- Thread starter
- #97
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Hmmm... maybe I should try another one, then. You are batting 1.000 on the Selectives and just .963 on the Gold Dollars that I am always crowing about.
- Thread starter
- #99
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
I just received some different exotic wood samples and my next step will be dressind my one completely finished Gold Slash in some wood scales. Then I will start sanding on the second blade. Watching this thread would be like watching paint dry if we never went off topic!
there was a topic??
