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Thread: First Shave!

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    Member Navy Chief's Avatar
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    Default First Shave!

    Well I went for it today and had my first straight razor shave, my wife used to be a barber so she has her old straight razor with all of her stuff. I dug it out and put in a new blade (obviously it takes a disposable blade). First thoughts are that this razor is waaayyyy too light to shave with on a regular basis, also I am not too sure how these blades stack up to a properly honed straight. But that shave was not too bad, I only wound up with 3 very small nicks that stopped bleeding very fast on their own. Quality wise it was comparable to a bad DE shave, I only did one pass and I a fairly close in most areas, I can do the same with my DE, but when I did my post shave alum WOW; this was an uncomfortable shave. I know this will get better in time with practice on my technique so I am not too worried about it. My last thought for now is that I never realized how hard it is to really see what you are doing when you are shaving with one of these, there is always something in the way of the view of the blade and the angle.

    Chief

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    Member AFDavis11's Avatar
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    Congrats Chief! We'll move you up to the big stuff soon. A regular straight shaves very different. Its hard to describe all the differences accurately though.

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    Member Navy Chief's Avatar
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    I have one of the pre-honed wapis on the way along with a 4 sided pasted strop so this was just me being imaptient to try something new. Part of the ackwardness this morning may have been due to the lack of weight on the razor I had to pull it through each stroke instead of letting the weight of the razor help. The plastcc parbers razor is hard to describe in terms of weight as I don't have a scale I could weight it on but it is really light, the only metal on it is the spine the blade slides into and it is just stamped steel. I will see if I can find a picture of one to post to give everybody an idea.

    Chief

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    Member Navy Chief's Avatar
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    This is the razor I am talking about, it uses disposable blades encased in plastic that slide into the metal spine.



    Chief

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    Member AFDavis11's Avatar
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    That is very cool! Light weight blades are hard to shave with. I find, depending on how long I've been shaving with an edge that needing to pull it through the stroke is pretty common with a regular straight.

    Usually those disposables are a little too sharp to be pulling into your skin. They nick a lot too.

    You'll see the differences soon.

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    Shvaing nut jbcohen's Avatar
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    Hay Navy Chief, do you remember me from Badger and Blade? You asked some time ago about wet shaving and at the time I recommended a straight, I was just getting my feet wet in wet shaving myself. I was hooked on the whole wet shaving phenomena myself. You said that you were going to stick with the double edge. Did I not tell you that the straight is what you need?

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    Member Navy Chief's Avatar
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    Yep, I can't deny that this seems to be a pregression for what appears to be most of us. We seem to start off with whatever new technology society throws at us and we digress (techonologically speaking) through DE razors and on to straights. It seems pretty interesting to me that aparently we perfected shaving technology some time ago, and everything else has been smoke and mirrors to lead us down the road of consuming whatever the manufacturers tell us is the latest and greatest, oh and coincidentally is the most expensive to purchase.... Maybe I should have listened to you then, but then again I still love me DE razors and developed some usefull skills in the meantime for prep work and lather building..

    Chief

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    Shvaing nut jbcohen's Avatar
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    I did my first straight shave today and the skills that I learned with the double edge I made use of with the straight as well. I will purchase a a better looking straight latter. For now my straight is not much on looks but all function, guess that is all that matters at the present time.
    Last edited by jbcohen; 03-02-2008 at 02:24 AM.

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    Senior Member crichton's Avatar
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    Congrats on the first shave!!!!!!!!!!

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    Congrats chief.

    I think you'll like the Wapienica, I have a couple and they hone up and shave very well.
    I think I did this thing backwards however. I was into knives, and well, sharp things in general, so I was shaving with a straight before I even OWNED a DE, although my technique and honing stuff got better when I joined the older version of SRP (over on Yahoo groups-it's still running too but I seldom if ever go there now, everyone's HERE )
    Now I'm just not picky. Usually I'll bring a straight on a trip along with a DE, really just depends on what mood strikes me for a particular day.

    It's a fun, *mostly* harmless addiction. Just never make a "slicing" motion while shaving with your straight. It will.


    John P.

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