Loading and shaving with a Gibbs razor

[JeffE]

I bought an adjustable Gibbs razor recently, and I've been getting great shaves from it using standard blades trimmed with a pair of scissors, so I wanted to share some of the information here.

Like many others here, I've heard of and seen these Gibbs razors many times before -- they look cool and are well made, but of course how can you use one without a supply of those strange Gibbs blades? Anyway, it turns out that trimming a standard blade to fit in a Gibbs takes about 5 seconds and can be done with a standard pair of office scissors. And I've been getting truly fantastic shaves from my Gibbs.

The adjustment mechanism is particularly interesting. If you can look closely at the photos, you will see that the blade stays in a fixed position and is locked down by a standard screw-tightened cap. The blade guards are adjusted with a separate screw mechanism on the shaft and move completely independently of the blade, kind of like in a Toggle or Futur razor.

The photos are shown below, and I hope you see them and give the Gibbs a try!

First, here's the photo of the razor I bought on eBay, just so you can see the whole item plus the box:

 

[JeffE]

And here's the sequence of shots where I trim and load a standard blade into the Gibbs:

 

[JeffE]

Last few shots

 

[JeffE]

Next time I load a blade, I'm actually going to try a little bit different method. When you just cut the entire edge off the blade like I have above, you need to be careful about aligning the blade before you tighten down the cap. But I've since decided that it would be even better just to cut two small triangular notches on each side of the blades so that the blade stays parallel to the cap and there's no issue with alignment before you tighten down the cap. I will try to post some photos of this next week. Enjoy!

 

[StuMcB]

You've cleared this up for me. I wasnt sure what the blade issues were. I may even start to look harder at these great looking razors.

 

[americanarmsdealer]

Thanks for sharing! That's a great looking razor!

 

[Sled Dog]

Cool razor, very clean. Agree with cutting notches instead of trimming the sides

 

[natchez]

I have used a little leather hole puncher I have to make notches in these blades. I did ruin a few blades before figuring out it does not take much pressure to have the blade snap in half. I found the blade does sit better with the notches than just trimmed. IMO the Gibbs adjustable is a fun little razor.

 

[JeffE]

Thanks for the info -- I will definitely try notching next time, and I think I can find a leather hole-punch tool somewhere (although I'm pretty sure that a paper hole-punch would work too -- a modern steel DE blade feels about as easy to cut through as a few sheets of paper).

I've been using the Gibbs for about a week now, and I can say definitely that there's no reason at all to crank it up past 2 or so on the adjustment dial, which runs from 1 to 6. It's hard to see in these photos, but the adjustment dial really has a huge range of motion, from 1 (cranked down so tight that the blade can't even make contact with your skin) to 6 (open so wide that you're basically shaving with a tiny straight razor on a handle). It's a larger range of motion than what I see with either my Progress or Futur, so maybe people who find the Progress or Futur too mild would like the Gibbs.