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Back to shaving with a razor again.

Hi there @CommanderBigMac121 Welcome to B&B, the greatest hangout place on the world wide interwub!

Sounds like you have a lot of interests. Keep us informed. What DE setup do you have?
Thanks.

I have a Muhle DE razor, though couldn;t tell you the model. I picked it up way back around 2012 when I moved off an electric but realised the 4-bladed leading brand razor was cutting up the sworl on my neck something fierce. I have a Muhle olive wood brush which looks beautiful but is too soft for my taste, so instead I'm using a MenU Bristle brush.

I mainly use Minora blades, which was the best I could find back in South Africa for a long time, though Feather blades seem to be a couple steps above in sharpness.
 
As @HazMat Shaver shaver said, gold dollars have a wide margin of error when it comes to spine wear. I took to one of mine with a diamond file to thin it down.

An 8k finisher is adequate in my opinion, but as @rbscebu stated, it gives a mediocre shave. I personally prefer a finer stone/film and preferably the diamond balsa finish.

Good luck. If you have a read through the attachment RBSCebu supplied you'll find a lot of useful tips and information.

I must get back to Malta, it must be three or four years since I was last there.
I've found over the weekend that the spine is going to need some thinning out, but I also need to find some online shops where I can get a proper flattening stone and hopefully some lapping film. Doubt I'll find in Malta and Amazon deliveries here has to be expedited so it gets expensive.
 
I've found over the weekend that the spine is going to need some thinning out, but I also need to find some online shops where I can get a proper flattening stone and hopefully some lapping film. Doubt I'll find in Malta and Amazon deliveries here has to be expedited so it gets expensive.
I last ordered film a couple of years ago when there was still a value that could be imported to the EU without VAT. I can't help with an EU source, unfortunately.
 
I last ordered film a couple of years ago when there was still a value that could be imported to the EU without VAT. I can't help with an EU source, unfortunately.
Thanks. I'll probably get some off amazon along with a lapping stone if I can find a decent one. I found a source in the Netherlands for stones, but they don't have the lapping film and shipping is about the same as from amazon.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
I've found over the weekend that the spine is going to need some thinning out, but I also need to find some online shops where I can get a proper flattening stone and hopefully some lapping film. Doubt I'll find in Malta and Amazon deliveries here has to be expedited so it gets expensive.
There should be no need to thin the spine out, particularly as you are relatively new to traditional SR shaving. It is the quality of the edge and your technique that counts, not the bevel angle.

I shave with SRs having bevel angles anywhere from about 19.5° to less than 15°. With a good edge, I find no difference in shave quality between any of them.

For a beginner I recommend a SR with a bevel angle of about 18° to 19°. Those SRs shave just as well as more acute bevel angles. They are also far more forgiving to operator error.

As your technique improves, you can try SRs with more acute bevel angles but if the edges are of equal quality, I doubt that you will notice a big difference. That has been my experience.

If you are going to use lapping films, you should have no need for a lapping stone. Read Annex III of the instructions. Films, acrylic and balsa can be purchased on AliExpress for much less than Amazon. If you are in a rush, Amazon might be a better source for you.
 
Welcome to B&B.
Keep working on the honing and you will enoy your SR shaves more when you get that edge truly shave ready.
 
There should be no need to thin the spine out, particularly as you are relatively new to traditional SR shaving. It is the quality of the edge and your technique that counts, not the bevel angle.

I shave with SRs having bevel angles anywhere from about 19.5° to less than 15°. With a good edge, I find no difference in shave quality between any of them.

For a beginner I recommend a SR with a bevel angle of about 18° to 19°. Those SRs shave just as well as more acute bevel angles. They are also far more forgiving to operator error.

As your technique improves, you can try SRs with more acute bevel angles but if the edges are of equal quality, I doubt that you will notice a big difference. That has been my experience.

If you are going to use lapping films, you should have no need for a lapping stone. Read Annex III of the instructions. Films, acrylic and balsa can be purchased on AliExpress for much less than Amazon. If you are in a rush, Amazon might be a better source for you.
Thanks rbscebu, thats good to know about the bevel angle. I'll have a look at AliExpress for the films and see what the pricing looks like.

I have a 180/600 and 3000/8000 synthetic stone (Taisun brand) so if I can get them lapped properly then I at least know they are usable again. But for now at least the film does seem like a simple short term solution.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
Thanks rbscebu, thats good to know about the bevel angle. I'll have a look at AliExpress for the films and see what the pricing looks like.

I have a 180/600 and 3000/8000 synthetic stone (Taisun brand) so if I can get them lapped properly then I at least know they are usable again. But for now at least the film does seem like a simple short term solution.
I started with films, bevel-set to finishing. Using them takes a couple of the variables out of the honing equation, surface flatness and grit consistency. Being able to successfully hone using lapping films also gives you a good grounding in later using whetstones.

After starting with lapping films, I then added diamond pasted balsa to my honing routine. Later, as I was honing more SRs (about 100 so far now), I bought some Chinese synthetic whetstones (400/1k and 3k/8k) for bevel-set and intial polishing. Still finished on the finer lapping films and balsa.

Recently I have slowly started to explore natural whetstones. Budget is my limiting factor here. My first was an Adaee #12000 Cnat about a month ago. I was very impressed. A slow very hard stone but gave me great results. Second was a Coticule/Belgium Blue whetstone that was given to me this morning. Can't wait to shave off it tomorrow morning.

My third natural will be a Chinese blue. That may be arriving tomorrow.

Your 180/600 whetstone is rather course for bevel setting and the jump from 600 to 3k is rather large. I do my initial bevel-set on 1k and finish it off on 3k. Then I will commence the bevel polishing on my 8k followed by 5μm, 3μm and 1μm films before the balsa. Most find that a three-time jump in grit rating is about the maximum that is reasonable. My 400 synthetic is only used for heaving lifting.

Lapping your synthetics is not hard or expensive. You just need a smooth flat 300mm x 300mm ceramic floor tile (I got mine for free from the local flooring shop) and some sheets of W&D sandpaper between about 100 and 200 grit.
 
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You can still hone it with a thick spine. A lot of people use the GD razor. I personally have one but it's been modified to not look like a GD. Thinned and all.

But I'd still recommend the vintage USA-made blades for practice honing. Even the best honers still use them to practice there skills.
 
Not easy or cheap to source vintage USA-made blades in Malta.
There is a decent supply of reasonably priced vintage Solingens floating about. I have found the auction sites have got comparatively expensive over the last few years though.

Also the condition of some of the offerings is questionable.
 
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