open comb? Hmmmm

[clayglen]

could someone edumacate me... I'm looking at open combs and everyone says get a "new"... so what's new? I don't want one prone to cracking, not crazy about gold or gold tone... what's the common one they say are easy to find? I like med-aggressive... hmmmm.

Thoughts on vintage open combs in regard to aggressiveness?

Maybe I should just go with the Merkur open comb and be done. I likes instant gratification.


Thoughts???

 

[mikey]

I would say a Merkur 1904 is a good place to start.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[seanusa]

Merkur OC's are very mild, for very little money a RR or Cadet OC is a moderately aggressive razor but not quite the "Beast" that the R41 is. Also a Fatip is a similar moderate aggressive for a little more $

 

[clayglen]

merkur oc's are very mild, for very little money a rr or cadet oc is a moderately aggressive razor but not quite the "beast" that the r41 is. Also a fatip is a similar moderate aggressive for a little more $

rr?

 

[Crag]

I'd go for the Matador OC...For just a little more money than the Cadet or RazoRock razors and they are much nicer. The OC shaves great! I like the Capa Roja Open Comb. Google Matador Razors.

 

[Dusty1]

Your friends are referring to a Gillette New, there is also a "New and Improved". They come in long and short comb versions. Great shavers, I highly recommend one.

 

[clayglen]

I like the looks of the Cadet and the RR. Fatip scares me a bit... some say it's way aggressive. Sheesh you can't beat the price for the RR or Cadet, cheap as chips!

 

[clayglen]

Your friends are referring to a Gillette New, there is also a "New and Improved". They come in long and short comb versions. Great shavers, I highly recommend one.

Mr. Razor doesn't have a "New" or a "New and Improved" he has models in said categories... so how would I know which is wich except by date. The single ring and double ring I get but the rest seem awfully similar. I have a hard time believing some sellers unless they serial no or code and that only gets me a date. I guess what I'm really wondering about is which is most common and if there is much difference in the shave between models?

 

[outon18]

I wanted to try the open comb razors and I didn't want to spend a lot, so I bought a Merkur "1904 open tooth, 41C" for $26 w/free shipping from Royalshave.com. When I was using my old gillette slim adjustable, I would use Astra blades. Well the Astras didn't work as good as I liked with the 1904, so I bought some Feather blades to try and those work wonderful. I really like it.

 

[marcel]

There is no such thing as a long comb new improved. Only the NEW has a short and a long comb head design, with numerous handle versions. The New improved has basically only one head design, the same goes for the New Deluxe model.

 

[clayglen]

There is no such thing as a long comb new improved. Only the NEW has a short and a long comb head design, with numerous handle versions. The New improved has basically only one head design, the same goes for the New Deluxe model.

Is the long comb more mild then? Are all the heads the same for short or long combs and only the handle changes?

 

[marcel]

IMHO the long comb is a bit smoother, but opinions seem to vary. I wouldn't call these razors mild, but they're smooth and efficient.

 

[clayglen]

So studying Mr. Razor's site a bit more it looks like old style have the bottom of the handle screws out and leaves a longer stem and the new the head screws off the handle much like the ball end old styles... so what diff... new vs old ball ends??? Hmmm looks like the teeth may be a little different.

so with this limited amount of knowledge I would guess this thing to be a new, bar handle... seller says 1931 and if there is no s/n I would guess that could be right...
How'd I do?

Doh, found the wiki links on the date chart... gorsh I'm dumb sometimes.

Not mild? Now you're scaring me. I like my pre-war tech, my Merkur 180 and my 58 SS. My EJ89 is so mild it doesn't really cut in one go, with feather blades anyway my Parker skips and chatters and burns like turpentine. That's not the kind of not mild we are talking about is it?

 

[clayglen]

Ok, I think I have a grip on new vs old now, thanks for all the input.
Which shaves best?
Vintage or some of the above suggested newly manufactured ones?

Thanks again.
John

 

[parsifal54]

I seem lately to be going back and forth between the Fatip and the Cadet OC using various blades.

 

[tm3]

Jmo but I kind of like testing the extremes and then honing in on what I like best. Or continuing to go back and forth depending on mood.

you have relatively mild razors, for the OC you may want to try something more aggro. The 1904OC is mild. The cadet, Fatip, or R41 would give you something different. I think that the Gillette options are more aggro, but would involve more waiting and shopping around.

 

[MacDaddy]

Since it doesn't look like this has been 100% clarified here yet, I'll go ahead and give you my crash course for differentiating between the four major generations of Gillette's three-piece razor designs: the Old Type, the New Improved, the NEW, and the Tech. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive reference, but rather a quick guide to the differences between them. I'm also leaving out the Goodwill, which wasn't really a generation in and of itself, but were models based on the Old Type and NEW heads with modifications to prevent someone from using non-Gillette blades in them.

Start off by ignoring the handle completely. When someone's talking about a particular generation, they're talking about the head design. The same head was used on multiple different handles, but what makes a razor an Old Type or a NEW or what have you is its head.

Old Type

The Old Type head has a curved cap and guard plate with cap studs that descend through holes in the guard plate to position the blade. There are two main variations of the Old Type head: The ones made before Gillette's original patents expired (in 1921) had thinner caps and guard plates, while the later ones that were made later were thicker. This side-by-side photo of Achim's is a perfect illustration:



New Improved

The New Improved models were Gillette's answer to the Old Type patents expiring. They had significantly thicker comb teeth in response to people's complaints that the Old Type teeth were too easily bent if the razor was dropped. The head kept the cap studs like the Old Type had for positioning the blade, but the guard plate changed from being curved to being flat across the entire center with a ledge that Gillette called the "fulcrum shoulder" where the blade would overhang the comb rather than sit right down on top of it. Here's a clipping from an ad that explains it best (click through to see the rest of the ad):



NEW

The main innovation of the NEW was the change away from the cap studs to a blade positioning bar (or fins/tabs) on the underside of the cap that fit into a slot in the guard plate. There are also four studs on the corners of the cap of all NEWs. These two features were what prevented old-style three-hole blades with rounded ends, which other makers were now manufacturing in large quantities, from being used in these razors. Instead, they had to be used with Gillette's new slotted blades with knocked out corners. The inner teeth in the comb were thinner than the New Improved, but the outer teeth remained thick. Here's another ad clipping that describes these features:



There were three main variations on the NEW in the US: the NEW DeLuxe, which had a much heavier, thicker guard plate; the long-comb standard NEW; and the short-comb standard NEW.

Tech

The Tech is the easiest to tell apart immediately, since it has a guard bar rather than an open comb. (Though there actually were open-comb versions of the Tech made for some European markets, apparently.) It kept the blade positioning bar concept from the NEW, but replaced the milled guard plate with one stamped out of thinner sheet stock.

 

[mblakele]

There is no such thing as a long comb new improved. Only the NEW has a short and a long comb head design, with numerous handle versions. The New improved has basically only one head design, the same goes for the New Deluxe model.

There were minor variations in the NEW Deluxe guard plate, as pictured on the wiki. I have several examples of each, and I find the 15-mm plate shaves more aggressively than the 17-mm variation.

 

[celestino]

Merkur 1904 is a very mild razor.
i would suggest the Gillette New or a Gillette Old Type.
Great info on the above post regarding the Gillette New.
Good luck.

 

[franz]

Nice work, Porter.