Introducing the 5/8 Cascade Steel Straight Razor

We are proud to introduce our newest product, the 5/8 Cascade Steel Straight Razor! It is handmade in our Portland, OR facility (just like the rest of our straight razors) and it features a vintage profile. It is also our first production razor to ever be made of stainless steel! The 5/8 Cascade Steel Straight Razor is available in both square and round points and launched last week with 4 scales options.

CONSTANT IMPROVEMENT AND UNCOMPROMISING QUALITY

With the Cascade Steel Straight Razors, we set our sights on making our best production straight razor yet: a razor with classic style and the quality of old American craftsmanship, with the best modern materials available to us. Since our founding we have worked to make modern straight razors worthy of handing down to future generations. To us this means making an heirloom quality product that honors the tradition of the straight razor and utilizes modern advancements in materials and technology to make something that is truly at the forefront. For this straight razor we wanted to make something that would step up our game and be our most useable grooming tool yet. The 5/8 Cascade Steel Straight Razor fits in the hand, has excellent balance between the blade and the scales, and is our first stain-resistant razor model.

Stainless steel razors are somewhat disreputable in the straight razor community. Many stainless razors seem brittle, difficult to maintain, and just don’t shave quite as smoothly as their high-carbon steel counterparts. On one hand, high carbon steel straight razors work very well. On the other hand, high carbon steel is hard to take care of and is unlike other blades most of us have in our lives - pocket knives, kitchen knives, scissors, garden shears - the majority of these cutting tools are stain-resistant and in 2017 we expect that our metals don’t rust. It would be a shame not to try and make a stainless razor ourselves that we found to be comparable if not higher-performing than high-carbon steel razors. Stainless straight razors get a bad rap and we attribute these negative characteristics to unwanted chromium carbide formation, a common tradeoff in stainless blade steels. So, if we could find the right stainless steel and heat treat it optimally to minimize chromium carbide formation, we suspected we could make a superior razor steel.

It took some time, but we believe our persistence paid off!

Fueled by our obsession with performance and finding the right tool for the job, we experimented with a number of new blade steels and heat treatment processes to find the ultimate razor steel. Not only did these experiments result in a new product, they lead to marked improvements to our heat treatment protocol across all of our straight razors. Our Classic Line and Artisan Line blades also leveled up as a result of our experimentation with heat treating the Cascade Steel blades. All of our blades now in production are harder, thinner, and sharper than earlier production models and we aren’t afraid to say that these are our best production razors yet.

As for the look of the razor - you all are very vocal in your requests for a more vintage-looking razor from us -- we hope this razor shows that we take your comments to heart! With this in mind, we turned to our favorite vintage straight razors for inspiration. Familiar lines, a lick of our signature style, and cutting edge materials have made this a fast favorite around the shop; we are all very excited to finally have it in production!

WHAT SETS THE CASCADE STEEL STRAIGHT RAZOR APART?

In short, it shaves effortlessly and it’s easier to maintain. Here’s why:
Smaller Carbides = Improved Sharpness.
We used a modern steel engineered specifically for use in delicate cutting instruments which, with optimal heat treatment, results in the finest cutting edge available. The edge is more aggressive and shaves with less effort and more audible feedback, improving the overall shaving experience by reducing resistance.
Increased Wear-Resistance = Improved Edge Retention
Nobody likes having to strop mid-shave. Harder, more wear-resistant steels result in longer-lasting edges that glide through coarse beard growth with ease.
Increased Chromium Content = Improved Stain-Resistance.
A slightly higher percentage of chromium balanced with the right amount of carbon makes this steel more stain-resistant without creating unwanted chromium carbides. One usually has to compromise carbide size for stain-resistance, but not in this case; the Cascade Steel edge shaves at least as well as O1, if not better!

Specs

• Handmade in Portland, OR
• 5/8 Round or Square Point Straight Razor
• Lower and Upper Jimps for Added Grip and Control
• Choice of Back Acrylic, Ivory Acrylic, Arizona Desert Ironwood, Ebony
• Quarter-Hollow Ground
• Cryo-Treated Cascade Steel Hardened to 62 HRC
• Shave-Ready: Hand-Honed to 12K Grit and Stropped Before Shipping
• Brass Pinned by Hand

It's time for a good old-fashioned rant : 1 minute on an american-made soap box

Portland Razor Co. received an email from Gold Dollar this morning asking if we would like them to manufacture our straight razors for us. I followed the link they had sent and found it odd that I recognized the photos (having never looked into buying a gold dollar myself). Look familiar? They stole photos I took for our manufacturing page and are using them to market their own razors!! To Gold Dollar's credit: someone over there knows their way around photoshop and did an excellent job replacing our logo with theirs!

A few thoughts on this:

1. I'm pretty sure this isn't how they make their razors, but it IS how we make our razors!
2. Gold Dollar claiming images of our straight razor manufacturing process as their own is intentionally misleading and co-opts the authenticity of us smaller makers who take time and care in our process. It says, "this wasn't made in a black box overseas. Look! This was made by a real person. You can trust us as much as you trust small batch manufacturers!" But the truth is, you can't!
3. I've seen much discussion and many many examples in the past year of larger faceless corporations ripping off independent artists on Instagram. This is a massive problem in the age of the Internet and it is a fact of life that it is hard to take the bad with the good. While sometimes legal action can play out in favor of the independent artists, there is a great deal of power which lies with you, our audience and customers, to choose to support us: the originals, the artists and makers who work hard to produce quality work and push our own limits every day. I hope you see the benefit of supporting small, honest companies such as our own. I want to re-enforce that your support and contributions never ever go underappreciated.
4. We've been meaning to update our manufacturing page, so this gives us a pretty good reason.
5. And OF COURSE, all of our razors will always and forever be American Made.

Aaanyways, looking forward to meeting Scott's hand twin in China some day! Happy Wednesday everyone!

P.S. we won't hold it against you if you share this with people you know who also care about the integrity and quality of the goods they purchase with their hard-earned money! ;)

New Custom Straight Razor Orders

Portland Razor Co. is re-opening the books for custom straight razors. In order to maintain a level of fairness and to respect those already in our build queue, we have made a few important changes to our ordering and fulfillment process.

1. No Guaranteed Time Frame on Custom Orders. Our first priority is to create a truly unique work of art and deliver our finest work. We will do our best to finish projects in a timely manner, but we do not guarantee a delivery date.

2. Pricing. Pricing will by handled individually and determined based on size, materials, and complexity. Email us directly for pricing info.

3. 50/50 Deposit/Payment. Because we no longer guarantee a delivery date, we felt it would be unfair to ask for full payment up front. A 50% deposit is required before we begin work on your order, and the remaining 50% is due upon completion.

4. Cancellations. Cancellations requested within 30 days of paying the deposit will be processed for a full refund. After 30 days, the deposit is forfeit.

If you would like to commissions a custom razor project, please email us directly at info@portlandrazorco.com

Portland Razor Co. is Hiring

Portland Razor Co. is looking to build its team of Makers and we are currently looking for help at our inner-SE Portland manufacturing facility.

To inquire about career opportunities with us, email Hunter at hunter@portlandrazorco.com.

In your inquiry, please include a general statement of interest, a brief work history (especially any experience you have working with your hands) and your level of familiarity with straight razors i.e. casual observer/veteran shaver. Please do not come to the shop expecting an interview; we appreciate you emailing ahead so we can set time aside from manufacturing to speak with you. 

We work in a manufacturing facility, which implies a certain level of inherent risk being around tools and machinery. Candidates should be absolutely comfortable operating power tools and working with their hands, and have a solid understanding of shop safety.

We are absolutely willing to train the right person. That said, the following is a list of helpful skills and experience:

• Metal Grinding
• Wood Working
• Leather Working
• Sewing
• Knife Sharpening

We look forward to hearing from you!
 

Making Straight Razors in our SE Portland facility.

The Year in Review!

I will start off by saying: thank you to everyone who is reading this. Without you guys, Portland Razor Co. would be a dream, and I would still be working in the corner of my garage wishing I could be making straight razors for a living.

Scott Miyako here from Portland Razor Co. I wanted to give a personal update on what's happening at PR these days, especially since April 7th marked our first full year as a business entity! This year has been exhilarating, stressful, rewarding... unforgettable. It's absolutely incredible how far we've come, from moving to Portland and starting the company in a little corner of ADX to having our own shop! I cannot begin to express my astonishment, pride, and gratitude for everything that's happened this past year. All I can say is: Thank You! Thank you for supporting American Makers and helping us become what we are today. The interest in our products and our company is astonishing, and it makes me truly happy to see how many people take their passion for straight shaving as seriously as I do. I have nothing but gratitude, especially for those people who reached out to us in our first year. Every email, comment, tweet, and shop visit has inspired real appreciation and makes all our hard work even more satisfying. Your support and enthusiasm has carried us through early mornings, late nights, and yes, even floods!

Back in December, our friend Matt at ADX connected us with STAY GOLD Studios. At the time, STAY GOLD was coming to Portland all the way from London to film an episode of their Makers series, and we had the good fortune of becoming one of the featured Makers in the series, which originally aired in the UK on Channel 4. I'd love to go into all the details of how cool it was to watch them work and how much fun we had that week with the STAY GOLD crew, but really, you should just watch the video:

It's funny to me now, seeing us work in that small space. We definitely miss our old home at ADX, but our new shop has afforded us a lot of new opportunities and helped us really maximize our potential.

Our early success has brought its fair share of growing pains. We are pretty heavily backordered at 2 months, and in reality, we are probably even a few weeks behind that projection. Luckily, Hunter has become a razor-making machine and is keeping us from completely drowning in backlog. Please know that we are all doing our best to rise to the challenge and are cranking out razors faster every day, and we will get to your razor in the order it was received as soon as is physically possible. 

As things are, the more orders we get, the more time I spend on customer service and emails, which leaves me less time to actually sit at a grinder and make razors. The reality of our ever-increasing list of orders will pull me away from the computer, and I apologize if my responses to your emails take longer or become less frequent. Because my main priority is making the best razors around and getting them to you in a timely fashion, please be open to someone other than myself responding to your questions and comments in the future. 

Additionally, to keep up with our growth we are now actively seeking additional makers interested in our craft, and hope to be training another apprentice in the coming months. This is a very exciting phase for us to be able to extend an invitation to someone else to join our shop family, and we are looking forward to meeting more talent in our community. We will start the search soon, so keep you eyes on the blog for more details.

Again, thank you for your incredible support through our first year in business. Here's to many more years to come!