Description
Providing the best of both worlds in a Dovo straight razor, the Sunday Shaver (model no. 91) borrowed the form of their Bergischer Löwe flagship razor and gives it some mild practical ‘enhancements’ so you’ll hopefully use it often!
No Gold to Just Wear Off
For example, the first touch of practical is eliminating a gold spine. Gold spines must be either covered up with tape (changing a razor to be more like an axe) or honed away. Both options stink! A razor becomes either a “trophy case queen” or less functional. Don’t give away looks or bevel acuity! The Sunday Shaver proactively eliminated the gold to both stay acute of bevel and consistent in appearance.
Satin-Matte Hand Finish
The Sunday Shaver has a satin-matte hand finish, only shared with the also-deceased Dovo flagship (“Flowing” #118). The finish is slightly more practical, as it is helps inhibit oxidation’s growth should you neglect your carbon steel (don’t do that, yo!)
Spanish Point
The Spanish point style (only shared among Dovo straight razors with the ‘BL’) is terrific for getting under one’s nose, and for maintaining a mustache/goatee.
Tremendous Concavity
The grind is wafer thin and this particular Dovo straight razor is hollow ground by Dovo’s most senior master grinders. This razor is substantially thinner than all 5/8″ Dovo round point models [with the exception of the long-deceased Prima Klang], and indeed is as thin as that one even if only designated as full hollow ground.
No Pesky Shoulder
The Sunday Shaver is a “shoulderless” razor, due to no secondary ridge being near the tang. This is a rare feature on any 5/8″ razor, and it always involves extra skilled steps by the master grinders during production. No ridge to avoid when stropping/honing is present upon shoulderless razors. This is unlike normal razors with shoulders.
There is no finer production Solingen straight razor in a 5/8″ size made today, and it has a practical finish and handle to boot.
Limited 400pc Run
Dovo devoted <1% of 2018’s capacity for Sunday Shaver’s 400-piece production run. This is a “manufactured rarity” razor, as opposed to materials-scarcities (mother-of-pearl & mammoth-tusk scaled Dovo razors, etc.) Whisky distilleries adore the “manufactured rarity” shtick, so it is nice to see it pop up in the str8rzr industry.
“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 Sunday Shaver will be delivered to you Guaranteed Shave Ready! Observe this precise model of razor being honed by TSS here! 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!
