What's new

Excalibur Club - Blade Longevity DE, SE and Injector

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Just completed 16 weeks with an Astra Platinum, averaging 4 or 5 shaves per week. Very nice shave, but I want the feel of a fresh blade again, so I ditched the blade after the shave.

That was probably not my longest lived blade ever, but certainly the longest lasting blade since joining B&B in 2017. The difference between now, and the immortal blades of old, is I use shaving soaps now. Much better shaves, but more residue build up on the blades than when I was using shaving gels. the residue lifts the edge height ever so slightly, and leads to the loss of efficient scissor action between blade and skin.

Yes, I could go OCD on the blades, and strip and clean everything after each shave, but that's not my style. Whatever disorders I do have, obsessive compulsion is not amongst them. Shaving as I do is fun, and I don't want it to become a chore again, be that in blade cleaning, honing, or other none essential act.

I'll be switching back to Wilkinson Sword for the next shave, and see if whatever let me get a marathon run with the Astra, will also let me have a marathon run with the blade brand I used exclusively for my first quarter century of DE shaving.
 
Astra Superior Stainless laser print (71)

P1130796.JPG
 
...
Tomorrow I am opening a fresh Personna Med Prep, let's see how well it wears down.
Results are in. To my surprise, the new blade worsened even faster. I shaved half of my face with it and the other half with a fresh Voskhod. The fresh blade felt comfortable, the Personna blade almost brought me tears due to pulling.
Personna vs Feather : 2 vs 2+1/2 weeks, so far Feather scores higher in my book. I'm still not content though, because other folks can use a Feather for a month. I deem the following explanations as reasonable:
  • Most Excalibur members shave with warm water, which increases the beard volume, decreases its density and therefore the force required to cut. Not an option for me, because warm water shaving irritates my skin (neck especially)
  • Most Excalibur members use a brush, I prefer to use shaving cream by applying it by hand. This is quicker, allows me to apply more evenly across the face and cushions better. Only downside: I need more cream. I might try using a brush again in the future, but for now I will try other options first
  • I have read that some of you store your used blades outside your bathroom, dry. I leave an opened blade air dry in my bathroom (which is poorly ventilated), only my unopened blades are in a plastic container. I think I need to reduce blade moisture more in the future
In another tread, I mentioned I have some new test candidates. I might need to line them up sooner than I thought. If all fail, I will revisit my "good" blades but let them dry outside the bathroom. For those of you who keep your blades (mostly) moisture-free, where do you store your opened blades before tossing them?
 
Results are in. To my surprise, the new blade worsened even faster. I shaved half of my face with it and the other half with a fresh Voskhod. The fresh blade felt comfortable, the Personna blade almost brought me tears due to pulling.
Personna vs Feather : 2 vs 2+1/2 weeks, so far Feather scores higher in my book. I'm still not content though, because other folks can use a Feather for a month. I deem the following explanations as reasonable:
  • Most Excalibur members shave with warm water, which increases the beard volume, decreases its density and therefore the force required to cut. Not an option for me, because warm water shaving irritates my skin (neck especially)
  • Most Excalibur members use a brush, I prefer to use shaving cream by applying it by hand. This is quicker, allows me to apply more evenly across the face and cushions better. Only downside: I need more cream. I might try using a brush again in the future, but for now I will try other options first
  • I have read that some of you store your used blades outside your bathroom, dry. I leave an opened blade air dry in my bathroom (which is poorly ventilated), only my unopened blades are in a plastic container. I think I need to reduce blade moisture more in the future
In another tread, I mentioned I have some new test candidates. I might need to line them up sooner than I thought. If all fail, I will revisit my "good" blades but let them dry outside the bathroom. For those of you who keep your blades (mostly) moisture-free, where do you store your opened blades before tossing them?

In my opinion, most of us don't do any common thing. I just started getting more shaves without changing anything significant. Somewhere around 25 shaves, blades turn smooth for me. After that, 100 shaves is easy.

Pulling is often a combination of too steep a shaving angle and too much pressure. There are steep angle shavers here that would disagree with me. Eventually, pulling disappears, but I don't know why.

It's fascinating reading the posts at the beginning of this thread. Once one person broke 100 shaves, others started to do it. It seems many of the barriers are purely psychological.

I usually use the same setup all the time.
  • Van der Hagen short handle razor
  • William's Mug Soap
  • Cremo horsehair brush
  • Astra SP blades
This year, I got well over 100 shaves on a Dorco blade that came as a sample.

I learned how to get a thicker lather with Williams. I think this reduced blade longevity a bit.
 
:eek6: That's a shock (considering William's Mug Soap is the ONLY soap you use)! :lol1:

It's nice to see you, Gary (and of course another shock considering that you "lurk only"). :thumbsup:

Well, I think I have only 27 pucks left. Maybe 26.

I've been setting up my bunker. I bought about $3,000 worth of books and food for six months. I'll likely buy another six months of food this month. My "bunker" is a mixture of allegorical and real. The supplies are real. I'm setting things up to be able to go a year without spending money. I just set that goal, but I'm already at six months.
 
In another tread, I mentioned I have some new test candidates. I might need to line them up sooner than I thought. If all fail, I will revisit my "good" blades but let them dry outside the bathroom.
I would be interested to see if that makes a difference for you.

When I'm testing longevity--and by that I mean purposely exceeding my "average" number of shaves with a blade, which is now between 14 to 21 shaves--I load my blade into the razor and leave it in the bathroom. I've gotten 30, 40, even 50 shaves without performing any blade gymnastics, such as removing, drying, dipping in alcohol, stropping, or moving to a less moisture-laden environment.
 
I would be interested to see if that makes a difference for you.
First phase of the experiment is over. I identified 4 blades which can give me a nice shave, all other got tossed. I used the same method as always - let my beard grow for 3d+ and then discard any blade giving me irritation. All except the following failed my "comfort test": Personna - Lab Blue, Gillette - Nacet Stainless, Gillette - Rubie Platinum, Ying Jili Blue, Zorrik Platinum. Several notes:
  • I was surprised to experience the Indian Gillette as different (i.e. worse) from the Russian ones
  • From my experience with other Gillette/PPI blades, some used to give me significant post-shave irritation but all brands felt the same during the shave. This time, I felt no post-shave irritation on the parts of the face where I only used them. But as before, I could feel no difference between the Russian Gillettes
  • Different kinds of discomfort: pulling (e.g. Baili, Lord, Treet) vs scraping (e.g. Loi, Müster)

Now comes the second part. I will label my remaining blades with the date when I put them in the razor and take them out when they stop cutting or when I see rust. If any of the blades holds its edge for longer than 3 weeks, it wins - otherwise I will cork a Feather and use try using it again, whereby I store the razor with inserted blade outside my bathroom.
 
I binned a Pemasharp a few weeks ago with 129 shaves on it. It was the first Permasharp I have ever used. I started a Voskhod. Since I mainly use a straight razor or shavette, it may be a few years until I bin the Voskhod.
Speaking of shavettes, I am sitting on 301 shaves with a Personna hair shaper blade in my Weck Sextoblade as of today. It’s still cutting without irritation, so I’ll keep using it for now.
 
Fatip Picollo SE + brass handle
Astra Superior Stainless (80)

P1140020.JPG

a few words after 80 uses of the same blade
the first pass - the blade does not seem to cut the beard (if we do not experience, we give up the blade!)
second pass - everything is ok. I can almost go out into the world.
the third pass- wonderful. almost well shaved.
small tweaks - great, close to BBS (8.5 / 10)
the sensation after shaving - great. No cuts, no irritations, everything is ok.

In this experiment of mine I noticed that a one-day beard is easier to cut than a 4-5-day one, daily shaving does not affect the skin of the face (for me), the soap used does not matter much if it does not irritate the skin is ok used hand soap and hair conditioner with equally good results), the blade should be kept out of the appliance clean and dry in a little toilet paper, from time to time I pulled the blade through the cork. the appliance was kept clean and dried daily. They are all like us and last only a few extra seconds daily. I frothed in the bowl.
It is very important to successfully pair the device blade. The Start 0.9 Homelike and Ikon Slant device work well for me.

So after three passes with this blade, I got a more than decent shave, without irritations and without cuts.
Question - throw this blade or move on?
I honestly got bored of it and I still have over 500 blades.
 
Really interesting reading. I am currently on shave 10 with a Wizamet SI. I can tell it’s not as good as initially, but it’s still as good or better than a Nacet at three shaves (go figure!). I will continue shaving with this blade to see if the shave deteriorates or stays the same for a while yet. Like most of you, I don’t need to do this, but y’all have piqued my curiosity, so now I have to know.
Jack
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Shave 25 on a German Wilkinson Sword blade today. The highest counted shave tally for me from one of these blades. I have had them last much longer in the past, but I never counted, and shaved less frequently back then. I probably did more prep work too.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Not a member. Just here to see what a masochist look like.

Can you guys do some after-shave selfies?

I don't do selfies, but if I did, they would look just the same as with a fresh blade. It's not a pain endurance exercise. My last blade was shaving just as well on its 40th shave, as it was on its 2nd. That's with a fairly average coverage and average density beard.
 
Good morning Gents.
I will be using an IP blade, in an English Tech (looks 60's, aluminum swirled handle, about 30gms) for the next month. Partly for carrying out advice on general technique from @Cal and @AimlessWanderer (hat tip) and also to test blade longevity. Any general advice on blade upkeep with an IP?
This will be my first blade longevity experiment.
I will report back periodically.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
⬆️ @Cal nailed it!

He and I have very different approaches. Cal will strip the razor down to clean everything after each shave, whereas I might clean build up off the blade after 10 shaves, or when it doesn't feel like it's cutting well.
 
Top Bottom