Hoping your pa-in-law is feeling better than normal soon, Dr. Doug
I started over my lips XTG, and mostly nose to ear the rest of my face, the GC84 still wants to bite around the corners if I don't pay attention.
The other thing I've learned is that no matter how little pressure you apply to your skin, there will be a 'wave' of skin ahead of the blade. It may be very small and quite likely is judging from the size of weepers that are occurring, but they can happen because that 'wave' has no distance to propagate into. The more pressure used, the taller that wave ahead of the blade becomes and the larger, and deeper, that weeper could be.
Think about the below pic and how waves propagate. The razor starting to move top left instigating that movement. The blue and/or red waves would be your skin surface ahead of the razor from the pressure applied. When those waves can no longer travel, they bunch up, you shave into and over them and plane off the tops creating a weeper.
This is why I was always getting a weeper right side of my mouth. The same spot every time. I'd be stroking from my ear towards the corner of my mouth. A wave of skin ahead of the razor and blade, and when I'd get to the corner of my mouth, that wave had no where to go, bunched up and I'd plane the top of that wave off just a tiny bit and get a weeper.
To overcome that I stretch my skin tighter and shave in a slightly different direction. Either slightly up or slightly down when I get to the same spot, but never straight into the corner of my mouth anymore. That wave needs a direction to travel in, so I gave it one. No more weeper there.
My Fatip' push the wave out of the way, at least in that area.An advantage to using a razor with gap is you can feel the tension of your skin in the gap increase before it bites. Remove that gap, like with a Fatip, and you no longer get that warning.
You would thing after 7 shaves in a row with the same kit I would have figured out how to avoid that.
It does, in the same way as using different baseplates for Rockwells and Karves.I don't know if using a shim violates the Fixed Four rules..........
I did swap handles, but they are identical in length. One is 2 grams lighter. (internal modifications). I have been using the same 37 gram handle since 3/27. I had not thought of that.It does, in the same way as using different baseplates for Rockwells and Karves.
I know we all love experiments, but the main aim of the Fixed Four is to get better at using our chosen equipment (and if you keep modifying it that ain't gonna happen).
Just don't call me late to dinnerThat's just my two cents Doug (I hope you don't mind the capital D).
For me the single shim improved the GC68 immensely, but the extra 0.10mm gap still didn't let me feel the blade (although it must have increased its exposure some). The GC84 was like a completely different razor because I could feel the blade (at its HUGE exposure of ±0).Not that I would try a shim in my GC68-P how did you find the GC78 compares to GC84-P?
When I started my wet-shaving journey last year I had used only Edge and Barbasol, and that was 30+ years ago.They say you can wave the brush around in the air near the MdC puck and get enough soap, but I've not tried that. When I'm using MdC I usually use about three or four swirls of the brush (which has been soaked and shaken so it's damp) on the dry MdC puck. That's plenty of soap. It might be more loading than necessary.
I'd bet a nickel you can cut the amount of loading down to a fraction of what you're doing. It's kinda a game amongst MdC fans.
AdP Colonia?Can you load any other soap like you load MdC?
It does.For me the single shim improved the GC68 immensely, but the extra 0.10mm gap still didn't let me feel the blade (although it must have increased its exposure some). The GC84 was like a completely different razor because I could feel the blade (at its HUGE exposure of ±0).
Does that make sense?
I have been hesitant to use a shim in a modern razor. As I understand one of the reasons for using a shim is because older razor blades produced were thicker, and the shim makes up for that with razors designed during that time period.For me the single shim improved the GC68 immensely, but the extra 0.10mm gap still didn't let me feel the blade (although it must have increased its exposure some).