rbscebu
Girls call me Makaluod
The RA will look better than the GD but will the RA shave better than the fixed up GD? Ralf may have some competition on his hands with regard to edge quality
.First shave with a Straight, Not Great
- Thread starter silverlifter
- Start date
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My hope is that the bevel is set right and all he has to do is go through the whole progression. But yeah, by the time he get's it he will probably not last more than 2 shaves before he goes to the balsa.The RA will look better than the GD but will the RA shave better than the fixed up GD? Ralf may have some competition on his hands with regard to edge quality
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- #43
Had another go this afternoon, after more lapping with film. Blade is still tuggy and skips. Managed to shave my cheeks and all of my neck, but just could'nt get it through the stubble on my chin, so resorted to the Wunderbar.
I finished the pasted balsa strops this afternoon, so tomorrow I'll take it through The Method and see if there is any improvement.
I finished the pasted balsa strops this afternoon, so tomorrow I'll take it through The Method and see if there is any improvement.
Props to you for sticking with it after that first experience. Hopefully you learn something from all this so you will have smooth sailing when the Aust arrives. 
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- #45
Props to you for sticking with it after that first experience. Hopefully you learn something from all this so you will have smooth sailing when the Aust arrives.
Even though it isn't enjoyable, I'd like to think I am learning about the blade, angles, and strokes for the planes of my face. And I haven't managed to nick myself yet, so there is that!
I have said it before, but a shave without blood letting is a good thing. Especially when still getting accustomed to using a straight.Even though it isn't enjoyable, I'd like to think I am learning about the blade, angles, and strokes for the planes of my face. And I haven't managed to nick myself yet, so there is that!
Once you get the edge right and your technique improves (even after years of using a straight technique improves albeit very subtly), you should experience fantastic shaves.
Take this blade to the stones, set your edge, then progress the edge, finally 40 laps on the leather strop. I am not a fan of the hanging hair test but it will tell you if your in the ballpark. I also like to lather a small patch of arm hair to test drive a problematic edge…it builds up my confidence that when it touches my face it will shave effortlessly. I really, really hate razor burn.
rbscebu
Girls call me Makaluod
Blood greatly improves lather slickness, just don't let it dry on your skin 
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.- Thread starter
- #49
Started from scratch. Created a bevel on a 1K stone, then moved up through the film: 2-4-8-10-12 and then a full pasted balsa cycle, finishing on a plain balsa strip. The blade was sharper and more "comfortable"*, at least for the right side of my face and neck, but midway through the left side, it was tugging and skipping again. I finished with my Slim.
Where I define comfortable as meaning I could complete full strokes relatively smoothly, without the blade tugging or stalling/skipping.
I'm going to wait for my Aust to arrive before proceeding further.
Where I define comfortable as meaning I could complete full strokes relatively smoothly, without the blade tugging or stalling/skipping.
I'm going to wait for my Aust to arrive before proceeding further.
Dumb question, did you look down at the edge with a bright light to make sure the two bevels meet all the way across the edge? I am just thinking that the uneven performance on different sides might point to something...
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- #51
That would imply I knew what I was doing, which while flattering, is a classic case of ignoring all the evidence...
Well, I am really not qualified to comment, but look at that stopping me!That would imply I knew what I was doing, which while flattering, is a classic case of ignoring all the evidence...
After setting the bevel, or after you think it is set, you are supposed to look down on the edge with a light(torch) and any areas that glisten are areas where the bevel does not meet. Meaning you needed to do more before preceding...
Now that I think about it, before that, you should have inked the edge and made some light passes to check the contact. If it isn't even, it's either your technique or the spine's geometry.
I am trying not to say too much, but these are basics I know from knife and axe sharpening. What I was getting at was, you might have an offset apex where it isn't making good contact when shaving on one face of the razor. Please throw tomatoes at me now...
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- #53
rbscebu
Girls call me Makaluod
The causes of you difficulty is either edge quality or shaving technique or both.
How do you know that the bevel was properly set on your 1k whetstone? You should be able to shave (not comfortably) directly off your 1k bevel set. You should be able to shave comfortably off your 1μm lapping film.
You mentioned finishing on pasted balsa. Did you use all three; 0.5μm, 0.25μm and 0.1μm? What is this plain balsa strip that you speak of?
With your shave starting as comfortable on one cheek and then uncomfortable on the other, sounds like your technique changes from side to side. It would be very rare for a blade's to deteriorate so quickly unless you were shaving at a very high shave angle.
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- #55
I don't doubt that.
All three. Plain balsa is just that, an extra piece of blasa, unmounted and with no diamond paste applied.
If by very high, you mean spine close to the face then yes.
Okay, help has arrived. Time for me to bow out... 
rbscebu
Girls call me Makaluod
Why the plain balsa? That is not even mentioned in the SR Instructions for Beginners. Being unmounted is not going to help things, although I think that has little to do with your current problem.
A very high shave angle is shaving with the spine too far away from the skin. The spine should only be ½ to 1 spine thicknesses away from the skin.
Remember that shave pressure has two components; the pressure of the edge against the skin (perpendicular to the skin) and the pressure against your whiskers (parallel to the skin). The pressure against the skin must be almost zero, just enough to keep it in contact with the skin and just remove the lather. The pressure against the whiskers needs to be sufficient to cut the whiskers cleanly.
Even with well over 800 daily SR shaves under my belt, I still find myself sometimes shaving with too much pressure against the skin. This results in a not so close shave. The lighter the pressure against the skin, the closer and more comfortable the shave.
It’s possible that a lack of skin stretching is contributing to the problem. With straight razors it’s very important to keep the skin taught with the off hand. With a DE the safety bar does this for you to some extent but there is no such help with a SR. If the skin is loose, it will bulge in from of the edge. This changes the effective shave angle at the interface of edge and skin. This may explain why the edge is cutting in some areas and pulling in others. Straight razor shaving is very much a two handed activity which involves shaving and stretching in equal measures.
It may have nothing to do with the problem but it’s certainly an area worth concentrating on.
It may have nothing to do with the problem but it’s certainly an area worth concentrating on.
After spending a few days shaving with my DE for adjustable April, I will say it’s like being on autopilot. SR shaving involves so much more concentration and attention to the little details…I am back on the straight next week. Generally, a bad SR shave results from multiple compounding minor errors. I can get by with a duller blade by shaving with wetter cream; vice versa I can get by with shaving at a bad angle by having a sharper edge and face stretching. But multiple things being a little off equals a bad morning.
I was really looking forward to this. I folowed my usual routine, so as not to introduce any other new variables. Hot shower, lathered up my wet face with Speick, for a nice cushiony lather that was on the wet side, so I could see the contours of my face, and set to it.
I shaved both cheeks and the outside of my neck. The good news: no cuts or weepers. The bad news, it felt awful; like I was plucking the hairs out. Ive got old man grey whiskers, and am of Irish descent, so my beard is reasonably tough, and this was not a pleasant experience.
I kept checking the angle, with the spine about one spine width from my face, give or take. I took short strokes, that I hoped would be smooth, but were really pretty jittery as the blade hit the whiskers. I made sure I was using no pressure (or as little as I could get away with).
Was my lather too watery? Angle wrong? Too little pressure to effectively cut the whiskers?
I'm not sure what went wrong, but without changing things up, I'm not looking forward to repeating that again.
Tips? Critiques?
Speick is a great soap for straight shaves so no issues there.
One spine width away is for dull razors. A properly sharp razor can be shaved with absolutely flush to the face anywhere that's possible.
Skin stretching is 100% Absolute necessary. Not sure if the same is true with DE/SE's... but if you don't FULLY stretch your skin with a straight you'll get a garbage shave at best, and carve yourself up at worst.
From your description it sounds like your razor is snagging whiskers. This means either a bad edge or it's not stropped (Even a good edge will feel like this if you don't strop it properly.)
It it's a bad edge, it's a REALLY bad edge... as in lots of microchipping or residual beveller tooth... so I'd lean towards the stropping not being correctly done... though to be fair, I've gotten "shave ready" from experienced honers that were absolutely littered with microchips (because they were honed over pitting and the honer didn't check them with a scope to see all the damage that remained microscopically). I could EASILY understand even an experienced honer having "restored" an ebay special or similar razor so that it looked like it was good to the naked eye, or even under a loupe, but was missing tons of micropitting that they'd need a shave test or a 200x scope to find. Like I said, I've been in that exact situation when I bought razors from guys who honed/restored before. Hell I've sent out razors like that myself during some edge comparisons I did, where I made the mistake of thinking "this razor looked good when it arrived, it's probably not pitted, I don't need to look under the scope" only to get the razor returned to me, scope it and see it was absolutely littered with pitting that someone had polished over before I bought it.
Also, those low value razors that were restored from being quite degraded/pitted are the kind of razors most likely to be piffed (except perhaps gold dollars)... because if done CORRECTLY they work fine but are also not worth enough to bother selling... meaning the restoration/honing has more value than the razor itself; and people prefer to give away effort more so than goods. As an example, your buddy might help you move but he's not gonna give you $500 to help you hire movers.
So not knowing who PIF'ed the razor, or what their technique is, or what razor it is. I'd say both are plenty likely. But I'd be fairly confident it's one or the other.
As for plain balsa... That will do little to nothing. Balsa is not a real strop. It's a medium for holding abrasives for abrasive stropping. Proper stropping requires leather (there are a few stopgaps/alternatives, but they're not really worth bothering with unless you need to strop and don't have any leather).
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