I recently bought a plaid aluminum handle ball end Tech because I wanted the handle for another project. Also one of the Russian army two blade razors ($5 on ebay) arrived a few days ago. I bought the Russian one mainly for the corrugated shim. Before putting the unused parts into my box of razor odds and ends, I decided to play with shimming the Tech. In fact a Tech is one of the few razors (along with a Wolfman WR2) that the Russian shim will fit since it doesn’t have the holes that normal razor blades have. I also made a stiff, wide shim from an old Barbasol blade. This is quite thick ~0.020” and very rigid. I ground off about .050” one each side of the blade.
The pictures tell most of the story. I only shaved with the top shim and both top and bottom shim set ups. The top shim only was decent enough but not overly efficient. With both shims the razor was a lot more aggressive than a normal tech (not surprising!). The shave was pleasant and smooth. The razor wasn’t all that sensitive to angle and it cut well over a wide range. Overall, it was worth spending an hour to do this. I certainly have razors that I prefer but this set up will stay in my reserve selection and probably get used once in a while. Just for fun, I will try shimming a WR2 even though I am happy with it as delivered.
The pictures tell most of the story. I only shaved with the top shim and both top and bottom shim set ups. The top shim only was decent enough but not overly efficient. With both shims the razor was a lot more aggressive than a normal tech (not surprising!). The shave was pleasant and smooth. The razor wasn’t all that sensitive to angle and it cut well over a wide range. Overall, it was worth spending an hour to do this. I certainly have razors that I prefer but this set up will stay in my reserve selection and probably get used once in a while. Just for fun, I will try shimming a WR2 even though I am happy with it as delivered.
