It depends. I've honed up quite a few of them, on average it took around 1 hour. But thing was that I knew what I was doing. For someone just started, it can actually take longer. Their edge retention seems to be okay, I shaved with one for over two months, stropping only on cotton web and plain leather between shaves, probably got around 30 shaves out of it already, and it still going strong. I would not recommend buying it though, I bought them solely for practicing purposes.Amen to what he said ^^. Honing a Gold Dollar can turn into a 3 hour (or more) task!! Its a Labor of love for the purposes of the 'honing game'! Some cannot be honed PERIOD. I believe they got the steel to hot while doing the hone on a belt and a buffer on some, and temper is ruined.Those crumble at 1k-2k and will not take a fully 'set apex' on every mm of the apex... You can't take chicken poop and make chicken soup, i could say it another way but i am trying to clean up my mouth/mannersWhenever you get a good one you can turn one into a nice shaver! I don't know how long they'll last, never done a longevity test. I assume since they're so inconsistent they would vary a lot like the difference between daylight and dark.. You will definitely get an education when honing on Gold Dollar razors, for sure!!
Gold Dollar Adventures⎯The Beginning
- Thread starter Saxonbowman
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- #42
@mrjin @Southbound1 Thanks for the replies. I spent weeks trying to hone that thing, starting with the "brown brick". I never did get it to shave arm hairs reliably. It may be a dud but I did try honing a vintage razor with the same result. Still the edge looks crumbly at 60x after the bevel setter so maybe it's just a bad blade. I had to step back for a while but I'll probably give it another go before long.
Steve56
Ask me about shaving naked!
Glad to take a look and see how it hones. I like a challenge, lol.
Hey man.
If you have had success getting nice shaving edges on other Gold Dollar razors, then its likely a dud. But if its your first go around with a Gold dallor it could be other variables. You cannot take chicken poop and make chicken soup. I don't care who hones it if it's bad steel and crumbles before 'bevel set' , steel temper is likely the culprit, no one has honing super powers. Dont feel bad chuck it and move on, its likely not you its probably the razor. Again if the bevel has chunks crumbling out of apex and it will not take a chip free straight apex its the steel, not the honer. I have tossed several because of this issue. Whenever they are good they're good, but the odds aint good, seems like they're worse now than 3-4 years ago.
The ones i chucked, chunks were crumbling as big as half the width of the bevel flat... It could be seen with the naked eye .
Best,
Mike
