Description
The 12581194 Dovo Prima Silver Steel is a 5/8″ width carbon steel razor (~4.77mm thick, weighs) with classic rounded point and horn handle. File jimps are upon the Prima’s tang, to aid your handling/grip during the shave. The Prima Silver Steel has model-specific styling to the face, like almost every Dovo. Laser engraving is also atop the golden spine.
Classic 5/8″ Size in Full Hollow Grind and Rounded Point
The 5/8″ width fully hollow ground carbon steel razor with rounded tip is the defacto standard in German production the last ~40-50 years. It is “easy” to learn (definitely a relative term here, as mastery of any straight razor takes months of dedication), without being limiting of the final comfort factor (a half-hollow ground razor such as “Astrale”, by contrast, is easier to learn upon but ultimately will not be equally comfortable as you master the task). A rounded point offers a safer experience at the tip, and allows toe-leading strokes (if you wish to maintain a goatee, however, consider Spanish point razors instead).
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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 Prima 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!
