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The Wanderer's Journey

A straight shave, obviously uncoated, can give me a comfortable shave, if my technique is reasonable, and health issues aren't getting in the way. They are a lot more particular about what lathers they will work with though, and the cutting action still doesn't feel as nice as a coated DE blade to me. I also think that a slightly coarser edge works better for me, as too polished an edge can give a similar (but lesser) cling to what I described with the Shark Super Chrome, as if some striations on the edge help break the vac lock between the blade and the hair stump.
Just out of interest Al, if you were offered a £1,000 SR free of charge (not by me obviously, this is hypothetical stuff) with your own choice of:
  • Steel
  • Blade shape (wedge/bellied hollow/whatever)
  • Size (3/8, 9/8, whatever)
  • Blade Length (standard 3" or shorter)
  • Scale material (and shape [if different to "normal"])
  • Anything else
What would you choose, and why?

This is leading up to another question, but I'd like your answer to the above first, please. :001_smile
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Just out of interest Al, if you were offered a £1,000 SR free of charge (not by me obviously, this is hypothetical stuff) with your own choice of:
  • Steel
  • Blade shape (wedge/bellied hollow/whatever)
  • Size (3/8, 9/8, whatever)
  • Blade Length (standard 3" or shorter)
  • Scale material (and shape [if different to "normal"])
  • Anything else
What would you choose, and why?

This is leading up to another question, but I'd like your answer to the above first, please. :001_smile

I honestly wouldn't know where to start, Cal. Answers are straight off the top of my head, without much serious thought.

I have two carbon steel razors, so I would say stainless, because I haven't used one. Hollow seems to work for me, and it keeps metal removal to a minimum when honing, so I'll stick with that. Size, 5/8 or 6/8, so it's not too dissimilar to what I've used. I seem to find the shaving angle fairly easily on mine, without it feeling like a paving slab on a stick. I'd try a shorty, as I only use part of the blade anyway. Maybe a shorty would be easier to manoeuvre. I'm not overly fussy about scales on a straight, so long as they don't mess up the balance, and don't add to the maintenance required

Although the simplest answer, is that I'm not sure I'd want another straight. My current two only get occasional use anyway, so a third would just mean that I'd use any one even less often.

I'm intrigued as to what the next question is....
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Well, the Lab Blue hit a brick wall at shave 7 on Wednesday, and was no longer as enjoyable and effortless a shave. I figured it might have been me that was to blame somehow, and flipped the blade before shave 8 yesterday. Did the job, but wasn't fun.

Gillette Platinum next.
 
Well, the Lab Blue hit a brick wall at shave 7 on Wednesday, and was no longer as enjoyable and effortless a shave. I figured it might have been me that was to blame somehow, and flipped the blade before shave 8 yesterday. Did the job, but wasn't fun.

Gillette Platinum next.

That is about what I get from Personnas.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Third shave with the Gillette Platinum today. Nice comfortable blade, but much like the Perma-Sharp, I need to be a little more heavy handed than I prefer. Another blade that seems to be a little better suited for more aggressive razors, perhaps.

Only about three or four shaves left in the portion of the Bundle and Rust, Goats Milk soap I served up. I might move onto one of the samples after this. I do like this idea of serving up a portion of soap at a time, rather than getting the whole puck wet.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Yesterday's shave (shave #6) was removing two day's growth (rough health on Wednesday), and for some reason, I was able to do a pressureless shave with great results. Followed the same routine today (shave #7), and while it didn't feel like it was snatching (which it did on the first couple of shaves), I had to do a fourth pass to be happy with it.

I'd already determined that the Platinum is quite a mild blade, but found it odd how much closer it shaved with no pressure on a two day growth yesterday. I've always preferred shaving with two or three day growth, but don't enjoy sporting the growth while I delay the shave.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Shave #13 with the Gillette Platinum today, and finished off the current serving of the Bundle and Rust, Goats Milk soap. Not decided yet whether to serve up another scoop of the same, or go back to the samples. I still have some of the creams left to finish off, and the Wickhams and Phoenix & Beau soap samples haven't been started yet.

I am happy with only serving up part of a soap though. It does get a little annoying when the serving in the ramekin is almost done, and there's just a smidgeon of soap left in the bottom corner. Still far less annoying than throwing part used soap away because it's spoiled though.

My current feelings on the Gillette Platinum is that it's OK in the Jagger, but may be better in something a shade more aggressive. Even if the blade box wasn't packed full, I don't think I'd be rushing to stock up on these. I only bought 15 of them, and it was a steal of a deal, so no regrets.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Do you flip the blade? I shaved with a platinum tonight and noticed the numbers. Do you have a methodology for flipping the blade?

I do flip, Kit. I flip the blade when it feels like it's fading or getting tired, rather than every X number of shaves. As my beard predominantly grows from left to right, my ATG pass is horizontal. Around the curvature of the jaw, only part of the blade is in play on the ATG pass, and this causes me to favour one half of the edge over the other when the blade is being worked the hardest. As such, after a number of shaves, I end up with one half of each edge, being slightly duller than the other. Flipping the blade brings the sharper half into play. I think it helps refresh the other half in a way too, as I'll often flip three times (using each face of the blade upwards twice) before discarding the blade

I don't know if this is due to "face stropping", loading the edge in the opposite direction when cutting, and therefore correcting/reversing any edge curl, or just clearing soap scum and scale that's built up on the edge, but when it's time to flip back to the original side, it does tend to feel better than when I first flipped it. It doesn't last as long the second time round though.

Just inventing numbers for the sake of illustration, I might get seven shaves on Side A before flipping, followed by another seven on Side B, but then only another three or four shaves per side after flipping back and using each side a second time. Flipping back a third time doesn't tend to help. By then the edge isn't giving me the shave quality I'm happy with. I don't intentionally keep track of how many shaves I've done per side, or how often I've flipped, I just discard the blade if flipping it doesn't improve it.

Some people swear by flipping and cleaning the blade after every shave, but that's more than I'm happy to do. I don't want the additional work for the sake of a blade that's already costing me less than a penny a shave, nor to be handling a bare blade every single shave, nor working the razor threads any more than is necessary. I just try a flip instead of automatically throwing the blade away. If I didn't flip, I'd be putting in a fresh blade after the same number of shaves, so I'm not opening and closing the razor any more frequently.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Had to flip the blade during the ATG pass yesterday, as it was really struggling. Very unusual for me to flip a blade during a shave, rather than waiting till the shave has finished. That was shave 16, and I don't expect this Gillette Platinum to have many more in the tank.

Today, shave 17 was with the grated Palmolive again. I'm not going to serve up another portion of soap in the ramekin, until I load a fresh blade. The boar brush works far better with the soap this way than it does using a shave stick conventionally, but I don't want to be fishing my synthetic brush out of my travel bag every time I use Palmolive. I don't seem to be using it any faster this way either.

I have refrained from going full blown hoarder since I heard that UK distribution is ending for Palmolive, but have got a few sticks tucked away. Considering how much travelling I actually do, I reckon most of it will be used grated and moulded into pots anyway, but not until I've cleared the backlog of other soaps. At last check, I've still got over 300g of other stuff to work through, before I'm back down to just Palmolive and Mitchell's.

I've noticed my journal posts getting less frequent too. "Just another shave" with stuff I'm very comfortable with, leaves me with little to say. I'm OK with that though, as it means I'm getting back to consistently good shaves, rather than the roller coaster of new things giving some fantastic shaves, and some miserable ones.
 
I've noticed my journal posts getting less frequent too. "Just another shave" with stuff I'm very comfortable with, leaves me with little to say. I'm OK with that though, as it means I'm getting back to consistently good shaves, rather than the roller coaster of new things giving some fantastic shaves, and some miserable ones.
:laugh: Back to "M" country, Al.
 

Chan Eil Whiskers

Fumbling about.
Waiting on this to get delivered today https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07B64ZGBT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.
View attachment 977761
I bought it, not because I needed to sharpen knives, but to maybe help me to remove small amounts of metal from a badly modded shorty razor I have.
It was cheap enough, so if it's no good for that, I'll use it to sharpen my pen knives.

That might be really handy. I'll be interested in how it works for you.

Particularly I'm interested in how it holds up, what the quality is, and whether it works for your intended purpose. I come across the occasional spot in the stabilizer or shoulder I might like to take down a bit.

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For sharpening my pocket knife and such as that I use this little tool which Slash recommended to me. It does a very good job by my standards for pocket knives (which aren't very high, but I do want to be able to cut what I need to cut). Link. This is extremely easy to use, extremely fast, and foolproof. I read the directions.

Happy shaves,

Jim
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
:laugh: Back to "M" country, Al.

I'm not sure I ever really left, Cal :D Yes, I got a few curio razors, but my subsequent explorations were more because I thought I should, rather than any need, or dissatisfaction with what I was already using. :)

I think that's why I started getting annoyed with how much soap is here, and felt I had to PIF some razors to cut the numbers down a bit. I was accumulating stuff I didn't need, and that didn't give me any discernible benefit. Although I certainly don't feel guilty about having so many blades to hand, even if I do have a few doubts if they'll all maintain their sharpness, for the couple of decades it will take me to use them up :001_tongu
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
18th and final shave on the Gillette Platinum today. No irritation, but the shave was a chore, and was having to be dragged through the hair a bit, rather than cutting freely.

I'll be trying a Gillette Super Nacet next.

IMG_20190529_132844_1600_1200.jpg

I was given some of these in a bag of mixed blades a few years ago. I may have tried one or two already, but before I started paying as much attention to blade differences. I've got two left, so if one of these is a dud, I should still get a decent trial with the other.

I think I'll stick with the Palmolive for a while too. It makes more sense to break out one of the two remaining soap samples, when I'm using a blade that I know works well for me.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
One month after supposedly winning my legal battle against the benefits people, there has been no change. No change in benefits, nor remedial payment. I chased them up a few days ago, only to be told that it can take up to 6 weeks to process providing they accept the decision, and don't disagree, and throw it back to the court.

As you may imagine, this came as quite a blow.

No news yet on the specialist clinic that my case has been referred to either, but looking on the website, it appears their therapeutic options would suit my medical condition/s better than anything I've tried so far. Much of it revolves around retraining the brain, effectively relearning a lot of my motor functions from scratch.

In the meantime (and knowing a little about psychology myself), I decided to get one step ahead of the curve, and figure out a way to get my brain back into learning mode, ready for the treatment options that lie ahead. I decided that learning music, both theory and practice, would be a smart move. It kicks almost all the brain back into learning mode. Visual, auditory, langauge processing, motor function, spacial awareness, and even maths to some extent.

So if/when the battle does finally come to an end, and I'm really hoping I don't have another 6+ months battle to go through first, I'll be looking at getting myself geared up with some instruments to learn.

I'll continue in my next post....
 
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