Thread: first shave with a wedge

explain more on the technique needing work please

Well, imagine what a hair sees - a sharp edge. It knows nothing of the rest of the blade.
How the edge moves through the hair is determined by your hand, and the most significant thing your hand is affected by is the weight (aka inertia) of the blade.
If your hand can provide a smooth motion at the proper angle there will be no issue what blade you use. When you lack the skill, larger inertia of the blade can help a bit and cover for the lack of skill.

It's like driving a giant truck versus a sports car. If you lack driving skills you can't get a smooth ride from the sports car - it will just respond to your errors immediately, while the larger inertia of the big truck will cover them.

Originally Posted by gugi

Well, imagine what a hair sees - a sharp edge. It knows nothing of the rest of the blade.
How the edge moves through the hair is determined by your hand, and the most significant thing your hand is affected by is the weight (aka inertia) of the blade.
If your hand can provide a smooth motion at the proper angle there will be no issue what blade you use. When you lack the skill, larger inertia of the blade can help a bit and cover for the lack of skill.

It's like driving a giant truck versus a sports car. If you lack driving skills you can't get a smooth ride from the sports car - it will just respond to your errors immediately, while the larger inertia of the big truck will cover them.

This is a useful post. I wanted to get a wedge to compliment my full hollow for this very reason.

With regards to the "medium hollow" bit; I'm almost certain that the medium refers to the size of the blade, not the grind. Most Sheffield "hollow ground" blades are about 1/2 to 1/4 hollow, and all the "medium hollows" that I have seen are around 5/8. Other "hollow ground" and "celebrated hollow ground" blades tend to be a bit larger. Again, these are just some observations from my experience.

^
You're right. It is a half-hollow. My mistake for referring to it as a wedge.

In regard to technique. I really wasn't having much of a problem after the first month of shaving. It has only seemed to resurface recently. As in, right after i tried to do a touch up on a 4k/8k. Hmmm.....

thanks for the responses

I hope you will forgive me if I repost here my post to another thread:

I have been thinking about the hollow vs. wedge blades recently because my sympathies were shifting quite dramatically in the past three months.

One of my first razors was an extra hollow one and I had big problems shaving with it without cutting the heck out of myself. Then I got a 1/4 hollow Wostenholm wedge which felt like a miracle. It was much better for my bad angles and poor technique. But as I was getting better and my shaves were getting closer, I discovered the bliss of hollow ground razors. I cannot get as close shave from a wedge as from a hollow razor today; and I nick myself far worse with wedges. I guess I have to improve my technique more to get my "wedge skills" on par with my "hollow skills". Wedges do not forgive me any mistakes.

My 2c...