Description
The Dovo INOX Ebony Wood straight razor (model 41-5835) is a variant of their bread-and-butter stainless steel razor. This model’s essentially unchanged in 40+ years, and along with the olivewood model remains in production. It is well balanced, easily honed/handled, and has durable shaving edge character. Beyond the ebony wood used on this #415835, the same razor is produced in olivewood (415875), buffalo horn (415855), or faux-mother-of-pearl (415815) scales [the latter two discontinued from production].
Stainless steel (1.4034) blade ~4.7×16.7mm, ~16-16.5° cutting angle, ~46.5g weight. File jimps (little ridges) are upon underside of the tang to aid handling.
Dovo makes the ebony wood scales, by hand. The ‘blanks’ are oversized by intention, and then aged. The wood rests some months before being cut to scale. This is not as inert as micarta, for example. But it is still durable, stable, and of course more natural. It has earned the German reference of “noble wood”. These scales are also available upon the Prima Silver Steel. If you’d like a perfectly ‘matched’ shaving brush, consider Dovo’s premium 918218.
________________________________________________________________
“Shave Ready”?
This business is wholly centered upon the sale of one hollow ground straight razor to one shaver one at a time; “1 str8rzr alone” is ~50% of all our orders. You may elect to have your Dovo INOX with factory edge or further honed by ‘TSS’, as only you see fit; there is not a right or wrong answer. ‘TSS’ rather doubts the worth of debating this ‘Shave Ready’ concept today; anyone can bandy that term about as if objective, meaningful information (like a sprinter’s time), but in fact it is completely subjective.
If you elect for the factory edge, you’ll receive your razor exactly as its manufacturers intended…pretty simple!
If you elect for The Superior Shave to further hone your razor via the drop-down menu, the #41 will be honed in the manner taught in 2016 to The Superior Shave’s proprietor by two kind Solingen master grinders (whom did/do not work for Dovo, but do use similar 1840s grinders’ textbooks methods). Observe this precise razor model being honed ‘only’ here! Regardless of their poor refinement compared to further-honed ‘Honemeister’ edges on offer, some physical elements of factory edges remain superior to most further honing attempts. The Superior Shave will devote the extra time to your razor a dying industry cannot afford in overhead, without taking away the factory edge’s inherently advantaged geometric metrics. We’re confident we offer the materially thinnest further-honed-by-vendor edge available for purchase – you’ll need to try that to understand why it matters. Please note: in the professional opinions of German and French razor grinders, a straight razor is not properly honed unless flush to the hone, without tape, so visual evidence of honing is unavoidable when honing is performed correctly according to its maker.
We hone with a method best coined as “the opposite of tape“ where a hone’s geometry’s wholly catered to performance of the razor and to no other concern. Unfortunately, this topic cannot be discussed upon any English-based straight-razor-centric forum because a select group of e-enthusiasts cannot abide such open discourse. Be encouraged to think for yourself, and let your beard and sense of touch be the judge; there is a lot of misinformation out there, much purportedly from experts! We wish you good shopping, and Happy Shaving.
