Making Shims For My Blackland Sabre

[GoodShave]

I have a Blackland Sabre razor and wanted to see if I could get more efficiency out of the L2 plate.
I had seen a video where someone mentioned shimming the Sabre but didn't find any details on shimming a GEM style blade.
I decided to experiment and see if I could make usable shims for the Sabre.

Since the Sabre clamps the blade down well including the spine, I knew I wanted a shim that did not require me to use pliers on every new GEM shaving blade so I decided to that I would cut off the spine area of the blade so that the spines would not stack up and change the blade angle. Next, I would cut off the cutting edge of the shim and then try it out.

I made the shims and made a post about the shave. People expressed interest in seeing how I did it, so below is a mock up of the steps I took.

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any harm to yourself/family/pets or damage to your home or items if you decide to make GEM blade shims. Do so at your own risk.
This process generated a lot of sparks so you want to wear eye protection and work gloves to protect yourself from the sparks.
You also want a work surface that will not catch fire or be damaged by hot sparks of steel.
At the end of the process there will be steel dust/soot to clean up so consider how you would contain all that mess.
By all means if you find better ways of doing this, please post here. I just had time on my hands and used what I had lying around the house.

I did not have a vise to use but if you have one, please use that instead of what I did.
The more secure the setup, the safer it will be to make the shims.

Since I didn't have any used GEM blades and I was not about to destroy any brand new GEM blades, I took three new box cutter blades to make the shims. These appear to be carbon steel blades from my Internet search.


I used a Craftsman rotary tool (Sear's version of a Dremmel) and a cutting wheel to cut off the spine and cutting edge of the shim blades.


I held the shim blade in place using a pair of vise grips.


I used a pair of dumbbells on top of a plastic case to hold the vise grips and give some height to work.
One dumbbell was placed on top of the vise grip to keep it vertical and one dumbbell was placed to the side to keep the vise grip from shifting while I was cutting.
With this setup, I had to cut only in one direction, right to left, as that was the direction of the supporting dumbbell.


With the protective paper wrapped around the blade, I clamped the blade in the vise grips so I had enough room to cut off the spine.


Next, I used a cutting wheel with the rotary tool and cut right along spine section of the blade preserving as much of the blade as possible.


This is what it looks like after cutting off the spine section of the blade.


Then I flipped the blade around so that the cutting edge was exposed but still kept the protective paper wrapped around the rest of the blade to get a good grip and protect the blade from the vise grips. I clamped the blade securely in the vise grips.


I then ran the cutting wheel across the cutting edge of the blade to remove the edge. This was easier than cutting off the spine as the steel is thinner here at the blade edge.

This is what it looks like after cutting off the cutting edge of the blade.


Continued on next post ...

 

[GoodShave]

Continued from previous post:

Here is the finished shim.


Here is the Sabre top cap with a GEM blade and no shims:


Here is the Sabre top cap with a GEM blade and one shim in place. The shim has enough of the center post hole for it to hold onto the center post. The side posts give the shim the bulk of the support.


Here is the Sabre top cap with a GEM blade and three shims in place.


There was more room on the side posts for more shims but I figure I would stop at three.

Here is the assembled Sabre with three shims:


Here was the test run:

Growth: Two day beard.
Prep: Warm shower: Stirling Sheep bar soap
Pre: Washed face with Stirling Glacial unscented pre-shave soap then reapplied before lathering.
Brush: Rudy Vey 25 mm STF
Lather : Razorock XXX Italian shaving soap
Blade: GEM Personna SS (D8)
Razor: Blackland Sabre
Base Plate: L2 with shims
Handle: Blackland Sabre
Post: unscented Stirling witch hazel and PAA Mysterium Serum

I did the first pass with one shim going WTB. That left quite a bit of stubble in the mustache and chin areas. It was slightly more efficient than the L2 plate by itself, but I was looking for more efficiency.

The second pass, I used two shims and went outside-in for the mustache area, E-W on the chin then a W-E pass on the chin (so that was a third pass for that area). I went my normal ATG on the neck. Two shims probably put the Sabre into medium aggression territory for me. Not too much blade feel but even more efficient from my estimate.

I then did a tiny bit of touch up with three shims to see how aggressive that would be. I really didn't need to do much touch up but I was curious about three shims. Three shims was a little too aggressive for me. Too much blade feel.

The overall shave was BBS/BBS-. This was the best shave I have achieved with the Sabre.

The shims worked well. The spine of the shaving GEM blade is unsupported by shims but I did not notice any issues. If it becomes a problem I may put some shims under the GEM spine.

On a different shave, I used two shims for the entire shave and had a DFS+ shave with two passes and very little touch up. I think two shims will be my go to setup when I shave with the Blackland Sabre (until there is an L3 plate).

I thought about making shims out of GEM SS blades so in theory there may be more resistance to rust but it will be a while before I have enough used GEM SS blades to make it worth the time and mess to make more shims. In the mean time, I will just dry the carbon steel shims after each shave.

 

[Frank Discussion]

Very cool. I find it interesting to see how people achieve an efficient shave with these types of ideas. I know people also use shims made from old blades in their DE razors to help improve the efficiency of the razor.

 

[Leverspro]

Continued from previous post:

Here is the finished shim.
View attachment 1543363

Here is the Sabre top cap with a GEM blade and no shims:
View attachment 1543364

Here is the Sabre top cap with a GEM blade and one shim in place. The shim has enough of the center post hole for it to hold onto the center post. The side posts give the shim the bulk of the support.
View attachment 1543365

Here is the Sabre top cap with a GEM blade and three shims in place.
View attachment 1543367

There was more room on the side posts for more shims but I figure I would stop at three.

Here is the assembled Sabre with three shims:
View attachment 1543369

Here was the test run:

Growth: Two day beard.
Prep: Warm shower: Stirling Sheep bar soap
Pre: Washed face with Stirling Glacial unscented pre-shave soap then reapplied before lathering.
Brush: Rudy Vey 25 mm STF
Lather : Razorock XXX Italian shaving soap
Blade: GEM Personna SS (D8)
Razor: Blackland Sabre
Base Plate: L2 with shims
Handle: Blackland Sabre
Post: unscented Stirling witch hazel and PAA Mysterium Serum

I did the first pass with one shim going WTB. That left quite a bit of stubble in the mustache and chin areas. It was slightly more efficient than the L2 plate by itself, but I was looking for more efficiency.

The second pass, I used two shims and went outside-in for the mustache area, E-W on the chin then a W-E pass on the chin (so that was a third pass for that area). I went my normal ATG on the neck. Two shims probably put the Sabre into medium aggression territory for me. Not too much blade feel but even more efficient from my estimate.

I then did a tiny bit of touch up with three shims to see how aggressive that would be. I really didn't need to do much touch up but I was curious about three shims. Three shims was a little too aggressive for me. Too much blade feel.

The overall shave was BBS/BBS-. This was the best shave I have achieved with the Sabre.

The shims worked well. The spine of the shaving GEM blade is unsupported by shims but I did not notice any issues. If it becomes a problem I may put some shims under the GEM spine.

On a different shave, I used two shims for the entire shave and had a DFS+ shave with two passes and very little touch up. I think two shims will be my go to setup when I shave with the Blackland Sabre (until there is an L3 plate).

I thought about making shims out of GEM SS blades so in theory there may be more resistance to rust but it will be a while before I have enough used GEM SS blades to make it worth the time and mess to make more shims. In the mean time, I will just dry the carbon steel shims after each shave.

Hmm. I may try this. I have a Sabre with lvl2 that I've only used twice. The prospect of increasing the efficiency interests me. I've also ordered a WR3 Wolfman with the largest gap offered, so look forward to comparing.

 

[APBinNCA]

I have always wanted a modern GEM razor and every time I visit Blackland's website and see the polished Sabre... this is a nice hack for somebody who already has one, but I am still waiting. Your review of using the L2 has helped calm down my RAD so thanks for that. Maybe I should try this with my Bullet Tip...

 

[Time Bandit]

Thank you @GoodShave! This was exactly what I was talking about. Great job!

 

[GoodShave]

Thank you @GoodShave! This was exactly what I was talking about. Great job!

Thank you so much!

 

[Quaznoid]

Are you a little disappointed that a $275 razor doesn’t shave very well unless you modify it with shims? I have a Yuma that I shimmed but it cost $7, so it’s not a big deal.

 

[Leverspro]

So, I was able to dig out a discarded GEM blade from my pickle jar of used blades. I tried to use shears.

It was difficult to cut without pieces breaking off, leaving me with a very imperfect cut line.

Not yet appreciating how tightly the shim needed to fit under the spine of the cutting blade I thought an ugly cut job would work.

It did not fit. The shim laid over the top of the spine of the cutting blade.

So, I trimmed more off until it fit.

But it looks dangerous to me. Not sure I want to try it!

 

[GoodShave]

So, I was able to dig out a discarded GEM blade from my pickle jar of used blades. I tried to use shears.
View attachment 1546589It was difficult to cut without pieces breaking off, leaving me with a very imperfect cut line. View attachment 1546590Not yet appreciating how tightly the shim needed to fit under the spine of the cutting blade I thought an ugly cut job would work. View attachment 1546591It did not fit. The shim laid over the top of the spine of the cutting blade. View attachment 1546592So, I trimmed more off until it fit. View attachment 1546594But it looks dangerous to me. Not sure I want to try it! View attachment 1546595

Another option you could try is to remove the spine from the shaving GEM blade (by wrapping the cardboard wrap around the cutting edge, holding that cardboard/blade side with vise grips/pliers and then use a second set of pliers to pull off the spine of the blade starting at one edge of the blade [from a video I saw]. Then you could do the same thing with a box cutter blade or old Gem blade to make the shim [just cut off the cutting edge and remove the spine]. That should give more support and less cutting to make the shim. The downside is that you would have to remove the spines of each new GEM shaving blade for it to work and not change your blade angle (I would think). You never know, maybe leaving the shaving blade's spine might give an angle you like. If you search, you may be able to find a video on removing the spine from a GEM blade. I have not tried any of these ideas myself.

 

[GoodShave]

If you just want to remove the spine from a GEM blade without cutting it:

Wrap the cardboard wrap around the cutting edge part of the blade, hold that cardboard/blade side with one hand and then use a set of pliers to hold the edge of the spine with the other hand. Next wiggle the cardboard/blade until it comes out of the spine.
That was a tip I read from @Ron R .

I know I saw a video somewhere about how to split the spine in half by pushing the spine against something to open it up and then flexing an edge back and forth until the spine splits, but I don't know where to find that information again.