How many shaves can you get from a gold dollar before bringing it back to the stones ?

[Creamy Suds]

Gentlemen. I am currently using a single gold dollar razor which I honed I homes myself. I finished it on the surgical black Arkansas stone. Tomorrow I will be on my 10th shave. The blade seems to have held up 100% up until this point. This morning I had an extremely close comfortable shave. Has anyone out there made it to 60 or more shaves on these razors?

 

[GearNoir]

Not on a GD. I only have one I’ve used a couple times.

One GD shaver in another forum has a proven method (once the razor is properly honed) of stropping and use of balsa with pastes to keep GD edges refreshed indefinitely.

 

[Dagwoodz]

Has anyone out there made it to 60 or more shaves on these razors?

I know people that have well over 100+ shaves on a straight razor edge without a full refresh. But they are also doing maintenance honing either on a finishing stone, lapping film or pasted balsa in between each use. They're only doing 20-30 laps, very lightly, but its enough to further refine the edge after use. A longer stropping session afterwards, then again before the shave takes care of the harshness of coming directly from the honing medium.

Now, personally, I've not used a GD or a mod'd GD, so I can't speak from experience. CBLindsay should be able to give an answer as well, as he has, from my recollection, a couple of mod'd GD's that he maintains, I believe by pasted balsa.

 

[Jellodancer]

I know this is an old thread, but I’m putting in my 2¢. Gold Dollars have great steel. It’s their inconsistent blade geometry that’s the problem. I have many Gold Dollars and many other vintage straights. There is no difference between them for # of shaves you can get before re-honing. I strop all my razors on cro ox’d Balsa when I feel their edge tugging. They can go a long time in between honings.

 

[Cherry City Mustache]

I've got A Good Dollar 300, that I purchased from Frank Misa at Strike Gold Shave. He corrected the geometry and honed it prior to shipping it out. I purchased it from him one year ago, rotate it regularly with my other razors, strop it after every use, and I have not had to have it refreshed. I would say, that with proper care and maintenance, it's possible to go quite a while on a quality edge.

 

[CBLindsay]

I recently did the one-blade-February with a modified gold dollar. After about 26 days of use and plain old stropping I felt the edge tugging more than I wanted, a bit of pasted balsa and cotton stropping got the edge back and I finished with 29 shaves one it. I did a fairly quick RE-touch on the coticule (heavy slurry on up then finished on water only) and the edge was as good as new. When I was learning to,shave I used this same blade for about 45 days doing daily balsa strop maintenance and regular stropping.
@Jellodancer said it best, the steel is as good as any it’s the geometry. I am sure some duds get by but Overall they are solid options when made shave ready.

 

[Smattayu]

+1 on the steel being good quality. That's one of the things that makes them great to modify. If you blue the steel or get a little too trigger happy on the dremel you're only out a few bucks. But with a some patience and some pretty basic tools you can come up with something very nice looking that is just as functional as any other blade out there.

 

[uacowboy]

This is making me want to dig out my old GD and see what I can do. It was my first razor when I started traditional Shaving and it came with a decent edge but the geometry is way off.

 

[BarberDave]

GD's once modified are awesome I have a few and I rarely have to take them back to a serious stone, as I do with all my razors 30 laps on a trans ark each post shave followed by good stropping. I have not had these on a coti, or my Shaptons in a few years. Good maintenance should prevent you have to "re-hone" that often, and if you set a good bevel, that should be the last time you ever need to... ever