Are brand new straight razors ready to shave right out of the box?
Well, Yes, no, and sometimes. First, there is a vast difference between various manufacturers of straight razors. Some we’ve seen from Pakistan or India, for sale on ebay selling for $10 may never be ready to shave in the fashion we strive for due to poor material quality and manufacturing techniques. Most of the high quality major brands like DOVO and others made in Solingen, Germany or Thiers-Issard made in France are made of high quality steel forged and tempered with the expertise gained from hundreds of years of hand crafting straight razors. These more expensive razors are hand crafted, ground, honed, whetted (stropped) and tested subjectively, without shaving with it, by hand before being packaged for sale. However, we’ve never seen a manufacturer that will create an edge in the way a dedicated straight razor shaver would. First, it would take too much time and raise the cost unbearably and second ones man’s sharp edge is another man’s dull edge. So bottom line is that the manuf
