Description
A Dovo straight razor addition from 2019, the #10580026 Barbarossa is intended as a specialist razor for professional barbers. You can use it at home, of course, and quite happily, too. Having survived the purging of models by the new ownership, it also means it has been a rather strong seller, and now Dovo has thought to produce a few more lovely Barbarossas with Spanish heads.
An Always-Enviable Spanish Point
The Spanish point upon the Dovo Barbarossa is always a special offering among Solingen production. In Dovo, the Spanish point is only currently shared with the Bergischer Löwe and Sunday Shaver models. In other words, the Barbarossa is extremely easy to use around the nose/goatee/mustache area; that’s the point, and that’s also why it is short.
Classic Olivewood Scales
The olivewood here (from SE European olea europaea trees) is aged to blanks 100% formed by Dovo. It also matches their own 33004311 shaving brush.
- Carbon steel 1.2210 5/8″ blade, ~4.5mm at thickest point, Spanish point
- Laser-etched on tang and ‘show side’
- Full hollow ground
- Conventional tang with file jimps on underside
- Total weight with scales is ~36 grams.
- 5/8″ Width
- Spanish point
- Olivewood scales
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“Shave Ready”?
If you elect for the factory edge (= do nothing, no note needed @ checkout), you’ll receive your razor exactly as its manufacturers intended…pretty simple!
If you elect for The Superior Shave to further hone your razor [plz add “note to vendor” @ checkout], your Dovo Barbarossa will be delivered to you Guaranteed Shave Ready! The Superior Shave hones via a method best coined (by the old Thiers-Issard director) as “the opposite of tape“, where the hones’ shapes cater to performance and little else; you begin with your coarsest stone that’s shaped as the smallest imaginary wheel, and you progress to finer abrasives that are shaped as larger wheels, thus sharpening the bevel from the spine toward the actual edge, and leaving a *thin*, concave edge first and foremost.
At one time, years ago, natural stones were used for the establishing and refining of a bevel. But the lapidaries necessary for such extremely refined stones no longer exist, to say nothing of sourcing the strata itself from Earth. So today, Dovo uses a pair of manmade, convex spinning discs to establish their bevels, and thereafter refines with bench stones hand shape to be mildly convex, before finishing on a pasted strop. The spinning discs are coarser, and have a shorter effective diameter, while the bench stones are finer, and have much longer effective diameters. Thus, the bevels are indeed concave, same as ever.
But the steel itself can withstand much more concaving than practical today at any factory, with no negative effects for the longevity of your razor, so long as you keep exclusively to shaving with it, keeping a low spine angle, and keeping skin well stretched and lathered; for its intended job, concaving a razor bevel toward its metallurgical limits only benefits the shaver. If you intend to use your razor at an angle outside of normal shaving work or upon a surface unlike a well lathered and stretched beard, however, a flat or even a convex bevel will better endure such odd usage of these tools.
There is no wrong or right choice for factory edge/further honed, but please do not believe all factory edges are never ‘Shave Ready’ – that is an absurd, yet common, belief. It is certainly the intention of Dovo when producing the razor that you to only need strop (after wiping off the factory oil!) just prior to shaving to receive a terrific shave. Thanks for reading this, and happy shaving!
