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  1. #16
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    I'm with the others as far as cleaning and/or stropping. I remember seeing a little tobacco tin size stropping jig for these. Inside it was belt on two drums with a handle. The lid had a slit for the blade and a simple hold down clamp for the blade. I suspect it would be very challenging to have a flat enough belt. I chalked it up as a gimmick but you never know.
    Yes, replacement blades are cheap but I'm with you on this one. I would find it satisfying to solve.

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  3. #17
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    Last night I used the back of my arm to strop/clean a "dead" blade. 20 strikes up and down on both sides of each edge.


    It shaved one cheek and my arm quite satisfactorily.

    This morning I'm going to try a bit of MDF with green stick I have from veritas!


    If I don't write back, avenge my death!

  4. #18
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    MDF is so dirty, I wonder if you need any CrOx/AlOx stick at all?
    Industrial sticks are 5 times bigger than Veritas for 1/2 the price.

  5. #19
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    The sharpening was not successful. The shave was terrible and I stopped.

    Going to try using a 16k stone.

    I've a green alox from Veritas I picked up for free from a divorcée who was dumping her ex's tools


    RV, I could use cardboard. At this time Im just being cheap and will probably buy one of those cleaning pads mentioned above once Ive experimented myself to failure.

  6. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ben Dono View Post
    I'm with the others as far as cleaning and/or stropping. I remember seeing a little tobacco tin size stropping jig for these. Inside it was belt on two drums with a handle. The lid had a slit for the blade and a simple hold down clamp for the blade. I suspect it would be very challenging to have a flat enough belt. I chalked it up as a gimmick but you never know.
    Yes, replacement blades are cheap but I'm with you on this one. I would find it satisfying to solve.
    I bet that was a Rolls Razor ...



    Read about them here: Rolls Razor - Wikipedia

    I recall my father had one.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  7. #21
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    Well, that was a failure. 8k fail, 16k fail.

    Obviously the angle needs to be really exact. I tried for about a 15°. I say tried, as there was no jig.

    Used a new blade and the shave was glorious!

    I do love DS razors.

  8. #22
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    Well Evan, I hate to say that I told you so ... but I Told You So!

    The older blades were high carbon steel. These modern blades are stainless steel and coated with Platinum, Titanium, Ceramic, etc. The only medium that will cut this is diamond, and this will add "tooth" to the edge, which is fine for a chisel, but I do not think that you would like shaving with this edge.

    Just use the blades, and then toss them when done. Enjoy the shave you get while you do.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  9. #23
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    I saw this thread in its infancy and thought "they may be missing something" and then thought no more of it, happily shaving away every 2-3 days. However, in the face of a pandemic I can stay silent no longer

    IIRC, Derek confesses to a medium beard, and Evan may have a coarser, more pixellated beard. I imagine Derek probably shaves almost every day, and Evan perhaps a bit like myself (errr, only in shaving habits), every 2-3 days.

    I have what might be called a light beard, not even close to Keating, Frydenburg or Ozhunter density (Adam has one of the finest beards you can see, with skunk stripes and density). I couldn't grow a proper beard of any character to save my life. I had a paltry Tache in my early 20s, and for a short time in my early 40's I had a goat.

    For many years I used a double blade semi disposable jobbie that I was pretty happy with. For reasons I can't remember, about 5 years ago I purchased a new handle + 4 blade kit of Schick brand. Each blade was a cluster of three blades, and some super-slippery line of "stuff" before the blades.

    The first shave was memorable.

    For all the wrong reasons.

    The super-slippery line of "stuff" reacted with the body-wash that I use for shaving to produce what can only be called a face full of foamy snot. Big long gobs of the stuff hanging off my face.

    Strangely though, the subsequent shaves were all quite normal, and that first blade lasted for....fully 6 months (so at 3x per week, that's about 75 shaves). I thought that might have been extraordinary, but the next blade was the same - 6 months - and so the packet of 4 lasted for two years. As did the next packet (6 months per). So for some years I have been changing the blade in June and December. The last month certainly isn't as good as the first but not too bad. I'm not talking acceptably rough finishes here - I'm talking exceptionally Lola pleasing smooth!

    They were actually so sharp that they needed to be worn in for about 4-6 shaves to get the best shave - less dangerous I suppose. I should say that I almost never cut myself shaving. The handles are about $4-5 if you get them on one of the regular specials, and the blades are about $4 each outside of specials.

    The manufacturers get sick of not selling new handles every few years so they change the blade connections to force a new purchase, and this usually accompanies the addition of an extra blade in the stack. I recently had to purchase another round of blades - a new decade and all that - and 3x blades are gone, replaced by 4x and 5x. Quite ridiculous overkill I feel (esp 5x) but the Schick Hydro 5 was on special for $6 with a blade so I got that and a packet of 4 extra blades for about $16 or so, and that should do me for the next 2½ years. I am still on the last blade of the previous 3x model.

    The only complaint I have of the current user is that it has a slightly too wide lead-in before the blade so I can't quite get the last line of pixels under each nostril, no matter how I contort my nose (with or without digital assistance)

    A shave takes me 90-120 seconds.




    Edit: In the light of this thread, and for the good of my fellow woodies, in a month or so I may shorten the life of the last 3x blade so as to have a go with the new 5x jobbie. I shall report back!
    Regards, FenceFurniture

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  10. #24
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    Crickey, I'm lucky to get 5 shaves from mine.

  11. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by woodPixel View Post
    Crickey, I'm lucky to get 5 shaves from mine.
    It was your earlier comment of the same that prompted me to post....

    And no dicking around with MDF, Green paste, 8k, 16k or anything else! Snap it in, shave away for several months.
    Regards, FenceFurniture

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  12. #26
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    Brett, to confirm, when I say "average" beard, I mean that I shave every day, and have done so since the age of 18 years.

    I've been using DE (double edged) razors regularly for the past 10 years. Before then I used the disposable double blade types. The DE leave a smoother shave.

    I have tried a number of different razors in recent years, including vintage Gillette. Here's the interesting thing: the Feather DE razor I have used for the past three or so years not only produces the cleanest shave, but I get double the time out of a blade compared with other razors. In fact, I could take a blade from another razor at the end of 5 days (which is about the length of comfortable shaving with one), and shave for a further 5 days, no problem.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  13. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by derekcohen View Post
    Before then I used the disposable double blade types. The DE leave a smoother shave.
    If by disposable double blade types you mean the handle is also thrown out with the blade every time....yes, they are no good at all. The replacement blade (double blade) types weren't too bad - used them for 20-30 years I suppose, but the ones from the last five years are absolutely outstanding (a stack of 3 is fine and probably all that is needed, but they need their gimmicks...). I would say the DE blades are honed better than the older double blades, and can't compare them to the 3x, 4x, 5x, Xx.
    Regards, FenceFurniture

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  14. #28
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    This is one of my areas of interest -there's a lost bit of information here when you guys are talking about sharpening modern DE blades, and it's this:

    * they're coated - usually with something very hard, and the blade underneath the coating isn't going to hold an edge.

    As mentioned above, before this coating became popular, blades like Gillette Blue Steel, etc, may have been a reasonable hardness through and through (they also rusted - there were hundreds stuck in the wall behind my vanity, each rusted a little until the moisture ran out).

    So, if you're using an old carbon steel blade (not sure if you can even find blades like that), you'll be able to hone them. I have so much shave gadgetry that it would be a sin to show some of it on here, but I have gotten the glass hones and other such small blade life extenders from the era when blades were a uniform material, but they generally won't work now if what you do ends up removing the coating from a modern blade.

    So, that doesn't mean you can't improve a modern blade - there's a chance that some of your blades might be dulled or damaged due to deflection of an edge without removal of the coating. If you can strop them lightly on a very fine surface (burnishing, no honing going on - this is the same idea as the glass hone), you may be able to push some of the misaligned blade back into order (think of the blade that's deflected like a stronger wire edge).

    If you try your trick and the blade isn't improved, then it's over, and you need to get a new blade.

    Coincidentally, this same thing happens on plane irons if you run into silica. The silica will mark up an edge and hone it in a way that you don't want, but what it also does is roll the edge up like a burr, and sometimes you can continue planing just by taking the blade out of a plane, feeling for this burr, and then straightening it without a full honing session. This isn't good policy for constant work, but if you're just trying to remove a bunch of wood and not sharpen fully every 75 feet of planing, it can lighten the load a little bit.

    Remember how cheap people were 70 years ago, too, when those gadgets were sold. I don't know what razor blades cost back then, but the last 100 astra blades that I bought cost $11 delivered. Personna blades at the drug store here are $3.79 for 5 (and they aren't nearly as good).

    There are some feather, merkur and maybe someone else - blade manufacturing videos on youtube on "how it's made", you can see the application of the coating as a last step. I've never DE shaved with an old carbon steel blade - I'm sure that every aspect is stacked against the carbon steel blade being nearly as good (the coating is harder, smoother - sharper, and it won't rust with moisture direct or ambient).

    I don't do much DE shaving, but I do shave with a straight razor almost every day.

  15. #29
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    YouTube

    Well, I remember when this video was new.

    I would've guessed chromium when the guy said early in the video that the coating added slickness to the shave (we just learned testing plane irons that the chromium in V11 makes the blades feel easier to push through wood than carbon steel, and Bill Tindall - on a forum here - not necessarily believing my perception that the vanadium carbide steels had a lot of resistance and the chromium steels had less than carbons steel contacted a metallurgist who confirmed that it would be measurable. many tiny carbides, especially chromium - make for slick contact with softer surfaces. Larger harder carbides are preferable for metal on metal).

    At any rate, not sure what chromium gets onto a blade at 600 degrees (even if it's C), but it must be part of some micronized special coating.

    Years ago when I was going bonkers with the whole sharpening thing, I wanted to find out why people thought feather blades were sharper than any straight razor (they may be), and saw a microscope picture of a feather blade, and couldn't figure out how they had a edge that was mark free - I suspect the grind probably isn't, but the coating makes it look more uniform.

    There you go....my apologies to anyone who may not be that excited about a long-dormant product of my obsession with sharpening things. And testing them.

  16. #30
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    I tried all sorts of tricks to keep my razor blades sharp, but none of them worked. In the end I found that if I shook the water off carefully and stored the blade (still in the razor) in a jar of olive oil (which does not harden unlike other vege oils) between shaves, I could get about 10-15 shaves from it. Since I only shave every few days, this worked out as months between razor changes.

    Note: I'm using a Maggard Razors MR11 Stainless razor with V3 head, and Astra Platinum blades made in Russia.

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