I don't shave with a straight razor but I use chisels and hand planes quite a bit (when I'm building instruments instead of fucking with synthesizers, seems like I've been alternating annually between the two since I got into my 30s) and based on that it seems like the quality of an edge is maybe 20% good steel and 80% sharpening and honing skill (I'd give mine a B). Any well honed edge is going to be a hell of a lot sharper than an off the shelf razor blade, though. Razor blades aren't that sharp at all.

Straight razors are similar, but there's a large component of physical construction in there.

Straight razors effectively have a jig built in -- they're designed to be laid flat on a hone and the width of the spine determines the bevel angle.

Titan razors are made with very wide variances in blade geometry, and pretty regularly need to be physically modified with a Dremel in order to lay properly on a hone. Plus, the scales (handle) are oversized and make it poorly balanced.

There are a few different grades of crap razors available on eBay. Ones that cannot take an edge because of either the quality of the steel or the heat treating process, ones which are mass produced in China without close quality control, but are made of good-enough steel and with a proper heat-treating process (which is what Titan and Gold Dollar razors are), and blinged out pattern-welded monstrosities made for dodgy vendors by skilled Pakistani metalworkers who haven't been given any idea what they're supposed to be making.

The terrible irony is that these Titan razors cost -75 depending on the model and it's a crapshoot if you'll get one that is usable. For the same money and often less you can get a vintage or antique razor that's better in every way.

(razors might possibly be one of my nerddoms)

I was being too nice. The Titan razors are now going for 0 on ebay. Jesus. You can get REALLY GOOD vintage razors for that price, and you definitely will not have to grind the heel of the blade down in order to hone it.

Shaving with chisels and hand planes sounds pretty hardcore, dude.

Genuinely interesting post!


Ashtar, the only thing that ever gets shaved with planes and chisels is the back of my hand when I'm testing the edges.

I don't doubt that vintage is the way to go, tools are the same way. Run of the mill professional hand tools made before 1960 (and especially before WWII) tend to be as good as or better than the expensive modern equivalents (the affordable ones are usually junk, although I've gotten great results from an 80s Stanley block plane I got free and spent a few hours fixing up - I use it all the time, stock iron and everything, and it works great and in the medium term at least the biggest difference between 0 and junk is the quality of the factory setup and the thickness of the iron - in the long run, poor quality iron bodies can warp or twist and potentially make a plane unusable). A Stanley #4 from the 40s or 50s is by most accounts every bit as good as a 0-0 Lie Nielsen or something, apart from the iron being a bit thin and design details like adjustment screws and things usually being a bit refined on the modern ones. And as far as wood planes, don't even go there. If you can use a hand plane well enough to care what it's made out of you can probably make one, and if you aren't going for collectability (I'm not a tool collector at all, I have what I need and that just barely - I use antiques because they're so practical) you can get a really nice 19th century iron for a lot less than a modern one that will probably be very slightly better because metallurgy in general is so much better, but will cost at least 4 times as much.

I whole-heartedly agree. For various reasons, I had to break down my workshop and get rid of a bunch of stuff. I'd originally just gotten the cheapest stuff I could find that'd get the job done. When I rebuild, I am getting as many vintage tools as I can find. Especially the drill press.

The few 1940's-50's era drill presses I've used have been vastly, vastly better and cheaper than all but the cheapest Harbor Freight models.

If you're not already combing through the online auction aggregators for woodworking tools, it might be worth your time. I somewhat regularly get razors that way for less than I would through eBay or the like. Even taking into consideration auction premiums.

I snagged a modern Grizzly G795 for my drill press, but only because I rent and it was just about the only way to get a bench top size radial drill press (and since using a radial I can't imagine going back to a conventional one) at a reasonable price, new or old (amazon has them around 0 now but I got it from Grizzly for about 5 delivered three years ago). I still use a 1940s Millers Falls 2-B hand drill as much as I can though, since it's quiet, less messy and actually goes faster than a power drill for a lot of things, including aluminum up to a point, and good luck finding a comparable modern hand drill for anywhere near the I paid.

If I owned a home I'd definitely be looking for a nice mid century band saw, belt sander and jointer though; a roommate at my old place got a 50s Sears jointer for around and once it was set up it worked great. If I had the space I might even look for an old overarm pin router, sometimes the high end commercial ones show up for free because they're such a hassle to even move, kind of like pianos.

On the other hand, a quality 24"x48" CNC would accomplish most of the same tasks for me with the added bonus of being able to use it to make one off circuit boards and aluminum control panels for pennies on the dollar compared to prototyping houses (or even renting time at the local public CNC shop), and without taking up nearly as much space.

My latest eBay outing, though, was getting a studio DBX noise reduction to go with the Otari MX5050mkIV reel to reel I got for a few years ago (in great working condition and with a customized enclosure that makes it take up about 1/3 less space than stock; they were starting around 00 on eBay last week) for with the remote control included; the remote control is, of course, not for the DBX (they just have a bypass switch and that's all they need) but for the reel to reel it used to be paired with, and the going eBay price for it these days is 0-0 so even if I start it low because I can't test it I should at minimum cover the cost of the DBX and maybe end up turning a profit.

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