- Thread starter
- #441
Sunday April 18
Ten minute tepid shower
Atlas 1000 Swedish Steel Japanese Kamasori Blade
Fatip Gold Grande - Feather
Zenith Chubby Scrubby Boar B27 - 28mm x 55mm
Vitos Extra Super Coco
Osma Alum Block
T.N. Dickinson’s Witch Hazel
Hyaluranoic Acid
Proraso After Shave Balm Sensitive
Neutrogena Hydro Boost - hydrating serum
Lucky Tiger After Shave & Face Tonic
Mistake, over exuberance, hair trigger, panic buying. No idea what I’m looking at. All of the above. The second image surely is a depiction of an end profile Kamasori blade. All I saw was what I was hunting. It appeared to me as a quarter hollow. Sometimes things happen for a reason. I did not stock or study the prey effectively or properly. I guess it’s possible to pull the trigger on the wrong target. I sure did. My bad. You are all safe from me. I don’t own guns or hunt live prey.
Some eBay sellers post no returns accepted. My options. Re-sell, take a hit. Walk the path of the Samurai. My limited honing and stropping experience has allowed me to achieve what I have read about an asymmetrical blade. Next level sharpness. Sushi knives arguably very specialized also accepted as one of the sharpest knives used in food preparation. Asymmetrical blade is a one sided or single bevel blade. Being single bevel they can be right handed or left handed in both Sushi and Kamasori blades.
Your best western style double bevel filleting knife is used by many of us in the same way. Think of laying the edge down flat on a hard surface and skinning a fish. That is exactly how the asymmetrical blade is designed to function. The blades bevel side up Ura. The blades flat side down Omote.
Honing and stropping are also different with an asymmetrical blade. You use a ratio. Western double sided blades are 1:1 one stroke on each side keep it even. The hone expert including a very respected Japanese honer I viewed used 10:1 on their Kamasori blades. This leaves the slightest bevel on the Omote flat side. I set the bevel and stropped the blade to a 10:1 ratio. All things being equal sometimes. There should be no problems using the blade as designed. It is next level sharpness.
800 years ago Korean Buddhist Monks did not bring a folding Kamasori blade with western scales to Japan. Their blade had a long tang of steel traditionally wrapped in bamboo. Some preferred the unwrapped bare steel tang, which is still in fashion today. The innovative Japanese somewhere along the line decided to use a Kamasori blade folding into western scales. Bonzer! For those using and preferring western folding razors the best of both worlds. Maybe. The same problem is present, with a different handle. Scales. Shaving the friendly side In my case right handed and right handed asymmetrical blade on right side of face. Going to the left side not so much. Now everything is backwards and upside down. Not an issue for the traditionalist. They use very innovative contorted angles to respect Omote side down. Some dudes may only prefer to use one hand and others both hands. Finding and using the appropriate angles to maintain Omote flat to the skin.
Shaving my head does not draw me to the side of traditional Buddhists norms. To me and many others a razor is a tool. Many shavers use both sides of a Kamasori blade to shave. One of the main reasons for a different honing ratio. Pick a ratio 5:1, 7:3, 10:2, 10:7 whoever is honing may well base their ratios on using both sides of the blade. They may also take their whiskers, shave soap, stones, strops and moon position into account in deciding their ratio used for honing. I will start my journey with the traditional 10:1. Upon the completion of 10:1 bevel set and honing. Surprise, I found a simplicity and more ease in establishing the finished bevel and edge compared to the western double bevel blades. So we have simplicity’s rolled in with the complexities of a different style straight razor. A shave will answer so many questions.
Top pic Omote
Bot pic Ura Razor to the left EMDE which is 49.7g. The Atlas Kamasori is 57.7g.
The Kamasori is a smooth sharp blade. Combination different angle plus an added 8g of weight. The blade in one word felt powerful. I decided to go traditional, full Ura bevel side up. I found the most difficult part of the shave was checking to see what side of the blade I was using. You have to check because than you need to find the grip that will accommodate your stroke. Of course all this fumbling around is beginners stuff very much present with the western straight as well. The extra time between strokes and figuring up from down was taking a toll on lather. Drying out was not an issue. The Zenith boar and Vitos soap adjusts a drying lather to snot slickness in seconds. A Kamasori blade demands slick lather no substitutions. The blade slides along on its strokes quietly and effortlessly. For my thirty-third straight razor shave. I did not find it difficult. Two little nicks the red line kind that don’t bleed. Last weeks EMDE shave I described as buttery smooth. The Kamasori felt like a greased buttery smooth. A tad smoother than the EMDE blade. I completed a SAS shave more out of caution. At the end of the shave I could start to feel that my touch was getting very much lighter. Everything felt real good. Just so that I would know and experience the difference I did a few Omote passes on my cheek. They are extremely shallow and uncomfortable for me. I prefer steep strokes on all razors. Tonights face and head shave was great. A slight improvement in skin comfort as well. The Kamasori with the ratios and green side up in all can sound complicated. Truth of the matter is. I got the same feeling as I did after honing the Kamasori. The shave was simplicity and actually felt less complicated than a western blade to me. This was the first straight shave that felt that way to me.
My shave was a combination of WTG & XTG strokes. Whatever fit the Ura shave strokes.
Im a newbie learner straight shaver. My journey would be smoother and quicker at this point if I picked and stayed with a blade. East or West? A journey needs direction.
Ten minute tepid shower
Atlas 1000 Swedish Steel Japanese Kamasori Blade
Fatip Gold Grande - Feather
Zenith Chubby Scrubby Boar B27 - 28mm x 55mm
Vitos Extra Super Coco
Osma Alum Block
T.N. Dickinson’s Witch Hazel
Hyaluranoic Acid
Proraso After Shave Balm Sensitive
Neutrogena Hydro Boost - hydrating serum
Lucky Tiger After Shave & Face Tonic
Mistake, over exuberance, hair trigger, panic buying. No idea what I’m looking at. All of the above. The second image surely is a depiction of an end profile Kamasori blade. All I saw was what I was hunting. It appeared to me as a quarter hollow. Sometimes things happen for a reason. I did not stock or study the prey effectively or properly. I guess it’s possible to pull the trigger on the wrong target. I sure did. My bad. You are all safe from me. I don’t own guns or hunt live prey.
Some eBay sellers post no returns accepted. My options. Re-sell, take a hit. Walk the path of the Samurai. My limited honing and stropping experience has allowed me to achieve what I have read about an asymmetrical blade. Next level sharpness. Sushi knives arguably very specialized also accepted as one of the sharpest knives used in food preparation. Asymmetrical blade is a one sided or single bevel blade. Being single bevel they can be right handed or left handed in both Sushi and Kamasori blades.
Your best western style double bevel filleting knife is used by many of us in the same way. Think of laying the edge down flat on a hard surface and skinning a fish. That is exactly how the asymmetrical blade is designed to function. The blades bevel side up Ura. The blades flat side down Omote.
Honing and stropping are also different with an asymmetrical blade. You use a ratio. Western double sided blades are 1:1 one stroke on each side keep it even. The hone expert including a very respected Japanese honer I viewed used 10:1 on their Kamasori blades. This leaves the slightest bevel on the Omote flat side. I set the bevel and stropped the blade to a 10:1 ratio. All things being equal sometimes. There should be no problems using the blade as designed. It is next level sharpness.
800 years ago Korean Buddhist Monks did not bring a folding Kamasori blade with western scales to Japan. Their blade had a long tang of steel traditionally wrapped in bamboo. Some preferred the unwrapped bare steel tang, which is still in fashion today. The innovative Japanese somewhere along the line decided to use a Kamasori blade folding into western scales. Bonzer! For those using and preferring western folding razors the best of both worlds. Maybe. The same problem is present, with a different handle. Scales. Shaving the friendly side In my case right handed and right handed asymmetrical blade on right side of face. Going to the left side not so much. Now everything is backwards and upside down. Not an issue for the traditionalist. They use very innovative contorted angles to respect Omote side down. Some dudes may only prefer to use one hand and others both hands. Finding and using the appropriate angles to maintain Omote flat to the skin.
Shaving my head does not draw me to the side of traditional Buddhists norms. To me and many others a razor is a tool. Many shavers use both sides of a Kamasori blade to shave. One of the main reasons for a different honing ratio. Pick a ratio 5:1, 7:3, 10:2, 10:7 whoever is honing may well base their ratios on using both sides of the blade. They may also take their whiskers, shave soap, stones, strops and moon position into account in deciding their ratio used for honing. I will start my journey with the traditional 10:1. Upon the completion of 10:1 bevel set and honing. Surprise, I found a simplicity and more ease in establishing the finished bevel and edge compared to the western double bevel blades. So we have simplicity’s rolled in with the complexities of a different style straight razor. A shave will answer so many questions.
Top pic Omote
Bot pic Ura Razor to the left EMDE which is 49.7g. The Atlas Kamasori is 57.7g.
The Kamasori is a smooth sharp blade. Combination different angle plus an added 8g of weight. The blade in one word felt powerful. I decided to go traditional, full Ura bevel side up. I found the most difficult part of the shave was checking to see what side of the blade I was using. You have to check because than you need to find the grip that will accommodate your stroke. Of course all this fumbling around is beginners stuff very much present with the western straight as well. The extra time between strokes and figuring up from down was taking a toll on lather. Drying out was not an issue. The Zenith boar and Vitos soap adjusts a drying lather to snot slickness in seconds. A Kamasori blade demands slick lather no substitutions. The blade slides along on its strokes quietly and effortlessly. For my thirty-third straight razor shave. I did not find it difficult. Two little nicks the red line kind that don’t bleed. Last weeks EMDE shave I described as buttery smooth. The Kamasori felt like a greased buttery smooth. A tad smoother than the EMDE blade. I completed a SAS shave more out of caution. At the end of the shave I could start to feel that my touch was getting very much lighter. Everything felt real good. Just so that I would know and experience the difference I did a few Omote passes on my cheek. They are extremely shallow and uncomfortable for me. I prefer steep strokes on all razors. Tonights face and head shave was great. A slight improvement in skin comfort as well. The Kamasori with the ratios and green side up in all can sound complicated. Truth of the matter is. I got the same feeling as I did after honing the Kamasori. The shave was simplicity and actually felt less complicated than a western blade to me. This was the first straight shave that felt that way to me.
My shave was a combination of WTG & XTG strokes. Whatever fit the Ura shave strokes.
Im a newbie learner straight shaver. My journey would be smoother and quicker at this point if I picked and stayed with a blade. East or West? A journey needs direction.
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