Straight Razors and Accessories

[John in Covina]

Strops of unique design.

He is redoing the Website right now but for some neat strops www.handamerica,com is a neat source of cool stuff.

He makes these really cool "bench" strops that are on beds of corian. He has one that has two sides you slip it out and flip it for the other side. Then you can have two strops: pasted with abrasive grit and plain for final honing and stropping.

 

[John in Covina]

Long ago there were some outstanding steel manufacturing centers that made for fine straight razors but the move to safety razors has eliminated so many manufacturers. The US had some awesome straight razor makers. The English were noted for Sheffield steel and some fantastic razors, think Sweeney Todd. Swedish steel was really good sometimes you see vintage on Ebay. Spain had the whole Toledo steel thing going, I have a Filarmonica from Spain. France has Thiers-Issard still. Germany may be the biggest remaining source going today with the Dovo And G&F/Timor from Solingen.
But the pendulum seems to be swinging back and the use of the straight razor is on the rise, bringing artisans to the field and specialty razors abound. Now it is a how much do you want to spend item with thousand dollar razors for sale.

I think it's like buggy whip manufacturers, there aren't many left but those still around make some really great stuff.