Excalibur Club - Blade Longevity DE, SE and Injector

[Saxonbowman]

Is there a list of how many shaves with a particular blade brand have been achieved ? I´d be very intrested in that! My english is very bad though.

With kind regards King-Joe

Unfortunately I don't think anyone has made such a list. This thread has that information, but it is a lot to read!

 

[King-Joe]

Well, that would be a huge job to make such a list. I read a lot here and try to use my blades in the sense of Excalibur.
Unfortunately, not many in my Rasurforum understand that. But it´s fun and I allways learn.

With kind regards King-Joe

 

[GaryTha]

Thanks to @psfred's advice on shaving angle, I'm now getting more shaves from my blades. 25 on a Gillette Wilkinson Sword and 22 on Astra SP. The Astra SP is still efficient, so I anticipate more than 25.

 

[King-Joe]

Today Shave No. 60 with the Personna Q-ball in my Parker 99r TTO! So many shaves I´ve only achieved once with the Kai blade. I think that´s also because of the Arko Stick I`ve been using for some time. Let`s see how long the blade still holds.

With kind regards King-Joe

 

[psfred]

I started using a slant razor (37C clone I think?) recently, and the results are very good with stainless blades. I greatly prefer platinum coated blades because they pull much less for me, but the slant has probably doubled the life of Super Stainless blades and Derby Premiums for me.

Have to be careful on my chin though, lots of blade exposure combined with some old scars and new skin roughness from being past 60 can result in weepers there.

 

[tehnothing]

So My only concern with this is after relatively few uses my blades regardless of brand develop rust. I shave every two to three days and I swap between my razors. After a shave I open the razor up, rinse the blade, blow it off since most say do not wipe, and, slap it back together flipping the blade. Usually by the third or forth use I already have rust. Do you guys have this issue too, and, if so do you just not care as long as the blade is still sharp? The rust is normally in the middle of the blade not the edge.

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[King-Joe]

I guess it´s the razor. With my Parker TTO, I have never had problems of rust, no matter what blade. Am shaving No. 66 !

With kind regards King-Joe

 

[Saxonbowman]

So My only concern with this is after relatively few uses my blades regardless of brand develop rust. I shave every two to three days and I swap between my razors. After a shave I open the razor up, rinse the blade, blow it off since most say do not wipe, and, slap it back together flipping the blade. Usually by the third or forth use I already have rust. Do you guys have this issue too, and, if so do you just not care as long as the blade is still sharp? The rust is normally in the middle of the blade not the edge.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

If you see rust on a stainless steel blade it's most likely dissolved iron in the water supply. It should be harmless on the blade. You can always dip the blade in alcohol or gently blot with toilet paper to get the excess water off. With carbon steel blades the edge will usually deteriorate long before you can see rust.

 

[GaryTha]

It's time to join again. I did back in December or so, but left when I wasn't getting good results. Besides, I was focusing on building good lather.

I'm an ultra-minimalist, or is it a mini-minimalist? Two razors, two blades, one soap (WMS), one brush, one aftershave. I'll be starting a 10-year Sabbatical for the 2020s. I'm about 187 shaves into a Cal Ripkin Williams Mug Soap challenge (2682 shaves in a row with WMS).

My best so far is 35 shaves with an Astra SP. I should hit 50. Then I'll use my other blades, Gillette Wilkinson Swords.
My interest is in seeing how far I can take a blade. Saving money is not part of my motivation.

 

[psfred]

It has taken me a couple years to get really good blade life. Hard to explain well, but the key for me was to get the most comfortable shave with well used blades. The lack of coatings and lower "sharpness" result in more drag on the bare stainless, and I've found each blade goes a little longer.

Also, I find a slant razor to greatly extend the usable life of super stainless blades. Less drag i think, especially after the coatings wear off. Platinum or chrome coated blades last me much longer since I'm generally discarding them when they become too uncomfortable. Shave quality drops off too, but the drag usually gets too annoying first.

 

[GaryTha]

Did you ever know you could achieve an impossible goal before it seemed possible to know? Did you tell someone or keep it a secret?

• "I'm going to run a marathon..."
  • "No, you're not. It's too far."
• "It's only a bit over 26 miles."
  • "How many miles do you run a week now?"
• "Uh, none, but I ride my bicycle."

• Two months later (true story),
  • "I finished the marathon today."
• "Bull****"

"I'm going to get 100 shaves on my current Astra SP blade. I currently have 37 shaves."

So far, it has been easy. That's why I'm so hopeful. Today, I did a prewash using Dr. Bronners on a brush. In a single pass, I got close to a BBS. I don't stretch my skin, so I'll never get a BBS. The Dr. Bronners prewash is a keeper.

 

[King-Joe]

I will use the blade as long as I enjoi it. I´m so free ! If it is 100 shaves, it is good, if not, it does not matter.
There are more and more shaves. I already stopped because it was just too boring.
Eventually it will be 100 times !

Sincerely King-Joe

 

[psfred]

Some blades last a very long time, others do not. I'll get around 50 shaves on a Rapira Super Stainless, for instance, but a Personna Blue looks more like 110 so far -- shaves are getting a little tuggy but not bad enough to change sides, and I just put 54 on it this week. Super stainless pull a lot more for me than platinum coated blades, so I get a lot more shaves out of the platinum ones. Both still produce a decent to excellent shave in terms of closeness, but the comfort goes faster on the super stainless ones.

 

[GaryTha]

Some blades last a very long time, others do not. I'll get around 50 shaves on a Rapira Super Stainless, for instance, but a Personna Blue looks more like 110 so far -- shaves are getting a little tuggy but not bad enough to change sides, and I just put 54 on it this week. Super stainless pull a lot more for me than platinum coated blades, so I get a lot more shaves out of the platinum ones. Both still produce a decent to excellent shave in terms of closeness, but the comfort goes faster on the super stainless ones.

Thanks for the info on the different blades.

I'm starting a 10-year Sabbatical on Jan 1, 2020, so there isn't time to experiment. For better or worse, I'm taking Astra SPs and Gillette Wilkinson Swords with me on the journey. Williams will be my only soap. I'll have a short handle Van Der Hagen razor and a Futur clone. Surprisingly, I'm getting a bit nervous about the journey.

 

[tehnothing]

Well I made it a one week or three shaves on a Wizamet SI and no rust so I'm in. I'll give it a try. I just bought 250 of these bad boys and liked em so much I gave a freezer bag full of assorted blades that wants to get into wet shaving. If I can get long life out of these blades then they will last me a few years. They will last me a few years if they don't, but, you get my point. I'm down to three razors, so I think I will switch using the same blade once a week and flip every shave.

 

[GaryTha]

Shave 38:

• Blade: Astra SP
• Razor: Van Der Hagan short handle
• Brush: Cremo Horsehair
• Soap: Williams
• Pre-wash: Dr. Bronner's Peppermint

Today, I put a couple of drops of Dr. Bronner's on the wet brush and lathered with it. It didn't quite reach the consistency of shaving soap, but the purpose was deep cleaning, not shaving. Without rinsing the Dr. Bronner's, I loaded the brush with WMS. It quickly exploded into a ton of lather that perhaps had a little too much cushion.

I focused on riding more of the top cap than I'm used to doing. In most places, it worked well. In a few places, I lifted the blade off the skin. No problem, I caught the whiskers during the touchup phase.

 

[GaryTha]

Hand Stropping

In 2015, many here recommended stropping to get to the high number of shaves. Is it worth hand-stropping?

 

[GaryTha]

37 on my Tech Astra SP this morning. 14 on my Fatboy Astra SP yesterday. Things just keep on going. I think the input quality of my shave which would be a combination of the quality of my prep, lather, and technique follows a bell curve distribution due to natural variation in those three variables. I also think that as a blade receives more use, the higher the input quality you need to have to achieve a satisfactory outcome. I think the blade reaches its life expectancy when the required input quality moves far enough along the bell curve that the portion of shaves lacking the required input quality starts to increase rapidly. It's maybe over thinking things a bit, but I'm interested to see how I feel when I get to the point of finally retiring a long run blade.

In my opinion, timing how long the blade needs to be on the face to get an acceptable shave would be an easy metric... that is if I owned a watch.

 

[sugardaddy]

Hand Stropping

In 2015, many here recommended stropping to get to the high number of shaves. Is it worth hand-stropping?

Not to me. Too much risk of damage to the very fragile edge. I may be wrong though.

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[psfred]

The only thing I do besides shave with the blade is occasionally clean off soap scum if it looks as though it's building up much. Hard scum on the skin side of the blade can keep the edge from contacting the skin, and that results in more pulling. By the time it's visible I'm not worried about wiping having an effect on the coatings, I suspect they are long gone.

Stropping would do the same thing, you just risk edge damage if you are not careful. Ditto for wiping for that matter, it's fairly easy to fracture the edge of modern DE blades. Chips and cracks will definitely reduce shaving comfort!