Can you define aggressive? Put into words what this "aggressiveness" is in an adjustable razor. Crystallize the concept. Make it clear to me.
Richard
Shaving Against the Grain is Wrong
- Thread starter tony mack
- Start date
- Status
Richard
Since more than one person has asked, no, I don't own a Slant now but I did. I'm down from around 45-50 razors to FOUR — a NEW, a '56 SuperSpeed, a Schick Krona and a Slim Twist I bought new and used for 15 years. Only the NEW is in my bathroom and only the NEW has been used for several weeks. The SuperSpeed and Krona are on a shelf in my computer room while I'm deciding whether to sell or keep them. The Slim Twist is put away in my closet as an historical artifact, a thing from my past. I was buying various razors to try, not to collect and certainly not to "rotate." I sold 17 razors in a lot yesterday. My trials have pretty well ended and I see no point in the ritual of "rotation."
My ultimate goal is to get down to one razor, one brand of blades, one soap and one brush. While I haven't disposed of all the rejects yet, I'm down to one razor I use (NEW), one soap (Lou's), one brand of blades (US Personna), and two brushes (a small soft badger and a large stiff boar). I disposed of eight brushes but I have seven remaining.
I owned a Slant for about seven weeks. I bought it mid-Sept last year and sold it about the end of October. I used it probably 10-12 times. I found it an above average shaver but I ranked it below the NEW, Tech, Krona and several SuperSpeeds.
Note that I've never suggested there was anything wrong with a Slant. It's a good razor. What is wrong is all the hype surrounding it. A Slant doesn't equal a Gillette slide in effectiveness although the Gillette slide can be used with it as I did I think every time I used it. From the first time I saw it the Slant struck me as just plain weird and it still looked weird when I sold it. While it was good it wasn't as good as some other razors I owned. It didn't make the top ten.
Richard
My ultimate goal is to get down to one razor, one brand of blades, one soap and one brush. While I haven't disposed of all the rejects yet, I'm down to one razor I use (NEW), one soap (Lou's), one brand of blades (US Personna), and two brushes (a small soft badger and a large stiff boar). I disposed of eight brushes but I have seven remaining.
I owned a Slant for about seven weeks. I bought it mid-Sept last year and sold it about the end of October. I used it probably 10-12 times. I found it an above average shaver but I ranked it below the NEW, Tech, Krona and several SuperSpeeds.
Note that I've never suggested there was anything wrong with a Slant. It's a good razor. What is wrong is all the hype surrounding it. A Slant doesn't equal a Gillette slide in effectiveness although the Gillette slide can be used with it as I did I think every time I used it. From the first time I saw it the Slant struck me as just plain weird and it still looked weird when I sold it. While it was good it wasn't as good as some other razors I owned. It didn't make the top ten.
Richard
In my mind, a razor becomes more aggressive as the safety bar is lowered in relative position to the blade edge. The angle of attack is changed and the blade is scraping the skin more so than a "mild" razor (which is slicing rather than scraping--relatively speaking). The likelihood of cutting yourself is increased as the safety bar becomes less of a factor. Taken to its extreme, you could remove the safety bar altogether and have a razor which would have more in common with a straight razor than a DE. In fact, there is a "trick" which will allow you to essentially do this with a Gillette adjustable, but I would not recommend that anyone try to shave with such a razor.
The best way for you to see this difference (assuming that you don't see it now, and are not simply asking this for the sake of contrariness), is for you to get (buy, borrow, etc.) a Merkur Futur and adjust it to the maximum setting. That should crystallize the concept for you very well. That razor opened up all the way is positively scary.
You're saying aggressiveness is a "lower" safety bar. Fine. That's an objective definition. That's something I can and have seen. However, I don't see any shaving difference. No matter how far apart the edge of the blade and the safety bar, it's a flat plane. Both the blade and the guard should always touch the skin so the safety bar is always an equal factor with the blade. A "lower" safety bar is therefore meaningless. You could have a quarter inch gap between the blade and the safety bar and it wouldn't change the shave. Remove the safety bar altogether and you have a straight with an odd handle, altogether a different animal, a razor that has to be positioned manually rather than automatically by the safety guard.
You're trying to combine the "lower" safety bar with the blade angle but there's no connection. The blade angle is determined entirely by the top plates, not the safety bar.
Based on my own experience razors labeled "mild" by shaving forum users (e.g. Tech) are invariably better shavers than those labeled "aggressive" (e.g. adjustable on a high setting). This isn't due to the distance between blade and guard but due to the angle of the blade in relation to the skin. There is an optimal angle for a razor blade to attack and it seems to be in the neighborhood of 15 to 30 degrees. The design of the top and bottom plate should fix this optimal angle. Adjustables do change the blade attack angle but the settings that deviate most from the optimal are worse at providing irritation-free hair cutting. Adjustables are yet another marketing gimmick in the shaving industry. I've tried at least a dozen adjustables over the years (and I recently sold three Fatboys and two Slims). Exactly none of them equaled the quality of a SuperSpeed. Lower settings didn't cut hair and higher settings scraped the skin.
So does aggressive mean larger gaps between guard and blade, which is observable, or greater blade angles, also observable but unrelated to the guard/blade gap?
Aggressive is also commonly used in shaving forums to refer to blades themselves where it is an imaginary concept OR else just another word for sharp.
Richard
Richard, I begin to wonder. Either you are pulling our combined legs, or you are, what in Internet circles is called a troll.
If the blade and the guard should always touch the skin, as you say, how can you tell us with sincerity that the distance between the blade and the guard does not have an effect on the blade angle? There is only one way this is possible, namely when the razor blade (the entire blade!) is in the same plane as the guard. Alas, there is no such razor!
In this thread: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24685
compare figure 4 ("Normal geometry") with figure 6 ("Larger gap - Orientation 2"). That is the scenario we are discussing here, namely different gaps while both guard and blade are touching the skin. I would like to see you tell us again that there is no difference in the blade angle with which the blade touches the skin.
Specifically to this:
and:
Adjustables adjust the distance between blade and the "lower" safety bar (those that I have seen do so anyway, but I don't want to rule out that there are other designs), but you just told us that the position of the "lower" safety bar has no effect on the blade angle. Your two statements are contradictory.
Again, tell us that you don't mean all those things.
What's it going to be: jokester or troll?
Best - MM
PS: By the way, a larger gap, afforded by adjustables, allows shaving of longer stubble, as the hairs don't get squashed and flattened by the lower safety bar when the blade hits them. As someone who understands the importance of having the hairs upright when the blade hits them, you should be able to appreciate that. But then again, you may never let your stubble grow that long before you shave, so that application may have never occurred to you.
Somehow we are failing to communicate. Every normal razor, excluding the Slant that is abnormal, has the BLADE EDGE parallel to the guard thus the two create a single plane. Only the BLADE EDGE touches hair and/or skin so any other part of the blade is completely immaterial and irrelevant. If the entire blade and the guard were in the same plane then NO cutting whatever would or could occur. The distance between the blade and the guard is measured at the closest point and only at the closest point. You don't seem able to grasp even such a simple concept as the distance between two objects.
There is no connection between the blade angle (determined by the two top pieces) and the gap between the blade and the guard.
They might seem contradictory to someone who doesn't understand adjustables but in fact they're not. You fail to comprehend what I'm saying and you fail to understand how an adjustable works. Most or all adjustables do adjust the distance between the blade and the "lower" safety bar. This particular adjustment HAS NO EFFECT on the blade angle. Adjustables make ANOTHER adjustment, in effect raising the bottom plate and this adjustment (that is not related to the adjustment of the gap) changes the blade angle. In fact the gap between the blade and the "lower" safety bar is an unintended but unavoidable result of changing the blade angle by changing the bottom plate. If you look carefully at an open adjustable while turning the adjustment knob you can see the little post thingies rise and fall. This is what changes the blade angle bending the blade more or less. It is this change in blade angle that changes the effect of adjustables, not the gap distance between the blade and the guard.
While there may be a modicum of truth to this "application" most shavers don't go long enough between shaves to have long stubble. There were always millions more users of fixed razors than adjustables yet there were no reports of difficulty in cutting long stubble.
I've never had the slightest trouble shaving a week or ten-days stubble with a SuperSpeed, Slim Twist, or any other fixed Gillette razor. During the ten-year period when I used an electric as my daily shaver when I had a week or ten days growth I cut it first with a DE then let it dry and finished the job with the electric. The only difference I ever saw cutting 24-hour stubble and 10-day stubble is that the razor has to be rinsed much more often and more vigorously to clean out the stubble.
It's neither jokester or troll but rather a teacher losing his patience with a pupil who places his own opinions above facts and who fails to pay attention to what I'm saying. I don't know if you made up the adjustables and long stubble business or are just repeating shaving forum gossip but it's wrong. That was never the intent of the designer or manufacturer and I doubt that there's more than a smidgen of truth to it. It's more forum nonsense being passed around.
Richard
The following is information about the Gillette Adjustables. Other Adjustables may vary but I have not held them so I will not have any information about them.
Ok you are just wrong here and obviously don't have much experience with the razors you are talking about. The following is information about the Gillette Adjustables. The aggressiveness of an adjustable is as has been said before the angle of the blade as it leave the top plates. Allow me to educate you on on this as you clearly are ignorant on this matter. The blade is positioned inside the top plates but the aggressiveness is changed when the bottom adjustment plate presses up pushing the blade higher into the top plates. Thus creating more curvature of the blade. Thus giving as stated earlier giving you the ability to change between scraping and slicing. It will also pull the edge of the blade under the safety bar or allow it to extend beyond the safety bar (This is from the curvature of the blade). This change is termed aggressiveness or mildness depending on what you desire. You seem to desire a middle of the road or medium blade angle. It works for you. It may not work for others to get the desired results. The desired results may not be the same for you as another individual. By not admitting that others may need or simply desire a different shave you come off as being belittling and condescending. Different people have different needs. Thus different razors and different products. Accept this and move on.
If you would like to discuss blade angles, settings, slants and all other shaving nuances then please do so but be open to the fact that others may not share your views or results. This is not an attack but just an expression of opinion in the same way you express yours.
There is no connection between the blade angle (determined by the two top pieces) and the gap between the blade and the guard.
They might seem contradictory to someone who doesn't understand adjustables but in fact they're not. You fail to comprehend what I'm saying and you fail to understand how an adjustable works. Most or all adjustables do adjust the distance between the blade and the "lower" safety bar. This particular adjustment HAS NO EFFECT on the blade angle. Adjustables make ANOTHER adjustment, in effect raising the bottom plate and this adjustment (that is not related to the adjustment of the gap) changes the blade angle. In fact the gap between the blade and the "lower" safety bar is an unintended but unavoidable result of changing the blade angle by changing the bottom plate. If you look carefully at an open adjustable while turning the adjustment knob you can see the little post thingies rise and fall. This is what changes the blade angle bending the blade more or less. It is this change in blade angle that changes the effect of adjustables, not the gap distance between the blade and the guard.
It seems our posts crossed while posting. You do have a rudimentary knowledge of adjustables. However you have not grasped some of the concepts as well.
You are the pupil here. What you stated above is inaccurate. The diagram you created is inaccurate as well. Here is the reason. When the bottom adjustment bar pushes the blade higher toward the top of the inside of the cap you do change the angle as you have noted. However you also change the distance from the blade edge to both the cap edge and the safety bar. Please forgive me for not having snappy illustrations handy but visualize in your mind the arc that is created by a low setting on a Gillette adjustable. Now if the bottom adjustment bar pushes that arc higher toward the inside of the cap then both the angle and the distance will change. The blade is a specific unchanging length. When you change the arc you will have an adjustment.
Somehow we are failing to communicate. Every normal razor, excluding the Slant that is abnormal, has the BLADE EDGE parallel to the guard thus the two create a single plane. Only the BLADE EDGE touches hair and/or skin so any other part of the blade is completely immaterial and irrelevant. If the entire blade and the guard were in the same plane then NO cutting whatever would or could occur. The distance between the blade and the guard is measured at the closest point and only at the closest point. You don't seem able to grasp even such a simple concept as the distance between two objects.
There is no connection between the blade angle (determined by the two top pieces) and the gap between the blade and the guard.
That may be true if safety razors worked the way you think. Alas, they don't.
Take your razor and look at it sideways with the handle pointing down. You will see that the edge of the safety bar is not directly underneath the blade edge, but is in fact also in front of it. Now, when you move the safety bar down and construct the plane between safety bar edge and blade edge, you will see that this plane changes with the width of the gap. This also means that the angle with which the blade touches the skin changes. Look at the two figures that I have referred to in my previous post. You seemed to have conveniently overlooked those when making your case.
Here is a diagram to illustrate that:
As you can see, the change in blade gap affects the angle at which the blade touches the skin. I can't speak for all razor designs, but I surmise this holds true for the majority, if not all, of them. It certainly does for the Merkur razors, non-adjustable as well as adjustable ones.
See above.
I have not failed to pay attention to what you are saying. If anything, I have paid way too much attention.
MM
Last edited by a moderator:
This is only true if you assume that both the bar and the blade are supposed to touch the skin, and in doing so set the angle. I would suggest that this is not the best way to do things though.
What we usually tell newbies is that you figure out the angle by starting with the cap against your face, and slowing bring the handle closer to the face until the blade just touches and begins to cut. Thus, the angle is determined by the relationship of the blade edge and the cap, and the bar really has nothing to do with it. You can do it the other way, setting the angle by resting the blade edge and bar evenly on your face, but I don't recommend it, if there is a large gap.
-Mo
Mo, don't get me started. That's exactly what I and others have pointed out all along. It is Richard (lionhearted) who keeps telling us that this is nonsense and that, always, the guard and the blade should touch the skin at the same time, and that the gap doesn't have any influence on the blade angle.
My comment was therefore directed at Richard's assertions and the effect that an adjustable has on the blade-guard issue.
Be careful with saying "what we usually tell newbies...". It's bound to get brushed aside by Richard as nonsense, gossip, placebo effect, etc. Well, he already dismissed all that, so there you go.
Best - MM
- Thread starter
- #152
Mozart:
Agreed. When I originally wrote that you have not made a coherent argument, I was referring to your various, contradictory writings scattered throughout the site. Maybe someone should clean these up, and remove the old ones where you now say you were in error.
My point remains that even in your more recent writings which you affirm are correct, you dont write in a coherent way. In one of these posts you arrive at the secret of what makes the Slant different than other shavers. You wrote: "The twist in the blade results in something that is much more akin to a scythe than the Gillette slide or J-hooking.
Your sentence seems to make sense if you skim over it, but if actually try to analyze it it falls apart. First off, theres a syntax error. You are comparing a scythe, which is an object, to a "Gillette slide" which is a motion. Did you mean to write that the Slant blade results in something more akin to a "scything motion? Or did you intend to say that the twist of the Slant blade somehow resembles the shape of a scythe blade?
Either way, it doesnt make sense, at least based on my experience of having used a scythe for several years when I was a teenager. The blade of the scythe I used was not twisted or helical. It was a flat crescent. Nor was the scything motion anything like shaving. Much as you twist and corkscrew your body to throw the scythe, in a perfect stroke, the blade moves parallel to the ground, hitting the grass straight on. This scything motion results in a perpendicular angle of attack, unlike the 30 degree angle associated with shaving. (Also, field grass generally has a much less pronounced "grain" than facial hair. It pretty much grows straight up.)
So, I totally dont get what it is about the Slant you're comparing to a scythe. In the very next sentence you write, The same principle is used in a number of wood-working tools, such as drill bits. What? You mean the principle of the scythe is at work in drill bits?
Like the sentence that precedes it, this one sort of make sense if you skim over it, but if you actually try to analyze what youve written its nonsense. Other than the fact that they are both cutting tools, I dont see what a scythe has in common with a drill bit.
Then you have this sentence: That makes the Slant a much more efficient cutting tool than the normal geometry." This sentence is not really in English. Syntax again. A tool is not geometry. I suppose you meant the Slant is a much more efficient cutting tool than one with the normal geometry.
But since in your previous examples you were comparing the Slant blade to a scythe and a drill bitor at least thats what you seemed to be saying after parsing out the poorly written Englishand these comparisons dont make sense, and are in fact, invalid, the totality of your analysis here seems to be utter nonsense. And I dont mean nonsense as in my opinion differs. I mean nonsense as in meaningless, empty.
When I wrote wrote of my original confusion on there matters, your response was to refer me to a link to an abstract of an engineering article on cutting tools. Evidently, the article is a comparative study of some types of blades used in "separating surfaces of soft solids." The abstract indicates the related article will focus on the efficacy of different types of grass cutting blades, some of them helical. I get that the article mentioned in the abstract is about cutting blades, and the debate here is also about cutting blades. But all this does is provide more general data on top of your erroneous scythe, drill bit and Slant blade analogies. It doesnt clarify anything, or advance whatever point you are trying to get across.
Unlike your dialogue with Lionhearted, I am not even arguing against your position or advancing my own competing one. Ive simply been attempting to figure out what youre trying to say about the Slant.
Initially, I found you contradicted yourself in the posts, first saying the Slant worked one way, than saying it actually worked another way. Okay, its fine as you say that some of these were written before you got a grip on the Slant. So, I have tried to focus on the one paragraph of yours that is recent and seems to be at the heart of explaining what makes the Slant special. As I posted previously and again here in more detail, this basic passage of yours, even allowing for the poor syntax, simply doesnt add up. You compare the working of the Slant to that of a scythe and a drill bit, and what I keep saying is you are comparing unlike things. If there are connectionsbeyond that they are cutting implementsyou havent demonstrated them.
I know you are scientist. But I dont think this relieves you from the burden of communicating effectively in English. And in this case, its not like were talking about particle theory or the big bang. Youre trying to explain what makes a razor with a twisted blade superior to regular ones. Maybe you'll get it right sometime, but you haven't gotten there yet.
T
As long as we're diagramming sentences, you omitted an article in the first sentence of the quoted text.
As Rodney King famously said, "Can we all get along?"
I've got to say, this is fantastic. I've been following this thread for several days and you guys are cracking me up.
- Thread starter
- #156
Typos such as transposing an "r" for an "s," or the omission of an article, as another poster noted, are not as fatal to a sentence having meaning as syntax errors. Typos are the result of mechanical error. Syntax errors arise from confusion in the mind of the author.
If dancing icons are your response to my repeated entreaties for you to actually make sense, then I imagine we've seen your best. While I suppose dancing icons cut it in whatever lofty scientific circles you are in, they don't do much in the realm of common English.
I understand you've spent more than a year trying to figure out and explain the Slant. And as we have both noted your conclusions and explanations have continually evolved. You might want to think about putting this project aside until your communication skills are up to the task.
T
Tony, you are a funny guy. I haven't laughed that hard when reading your total annihilation of my communication skills in a long time. Seriously. That was the highlight of this thread. You are very eloquent.
You surely have cemented your reputation with these last two posts of yours.
- Thread starter
- #158
I've got to call this off with Mozart, because I really like him in his writing and passion for technology and humor, as well as his good grace in all of this. What worries me is my attempts at humor might start crossing the line into stupid, mean-spiritedness, always a danger in this form of communication. Maybe I already have. If I have, I apologize.
Besides, this I don't know what the hell we're talking about any more. Mozart might actually know what we are talking about, because I think he knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. I'm at the level of trying to mount syntax arguments, which when you think if it, is actually kind of pathetic.
And I swear to anyone reading this now, I promise to keep my mouth shut on the raging side debate as to whether or not "aggressiveness" or "mildness" actually mean anything. I'll tell you all right now. I don't have a clue, don't have an opinion.
I think I'll read some shaving cream reviews and take a rest.
Thanks, Mozart, for carrying this on as entertainingly as you have. I have enjoyed your communication skills, and despite my posts to the contrary, have learned a great deal from you.
T
Besides, this I don't know what the hell we're talking about any more. Mozart might actually know what we are talking about, because I think he knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. I'm at the level of trying to mount syntax arguments, which when you think if it, is actually kind of pathetic.
And I swear to anyone reading this now, I promise to keep my mouth shut on the raging side debate as to whether or not "aggressiveness" or "mildness" actually mean anything. I'll tell you all right now. I don't have a clue, don't have an opinion.
I think I'll read some shaving cream reviews and take a rest.
Thanks, Mozart, for carrying this on as entertainingly as you have. I have enjoyed your communication skills, and despite my posts to the contrary, have learned a great deal from you.
T
I would not assume any of those running for office are entirely well meaning or completely in error. That's why voting is important, difficult and is not subject to easy answers.
I am very glad I ran spill chek when I typped thoes last too posts of mine. I am horrable at gramer and spilling. Stuff.
- Status
Similar threads
