Thread: New Blade

As I stated in a previous post I was making a replacement blade for a hollow grind that I'd over sharpened into a wedge. Anyway the blade was ground and the polishing began thursday evening, by Friday it was ready for a test.(Forgot to mention I was making this one a dedicated wedge from the off.) So after a quick hone on the slate it was upstairs and get the face prepped before the final stropping. Stropped the razor and approached my face in the usual way and just as the razor touched the skin felt that cold feeling of steel on skin yet somehow it felt different so cursing and swearing decided to make sure I had'nt nicked myself so on moving the lather I was glad to see there was no blood but on closer inspection could see a nice red line developing across the bottom of the sideburn. And this from a razor that had only touched the skin without even starting to make a stroke, is this normal from a blade or is it over sharp? This made me very wary and the shave took about 15 mins longer than usual while all the time thinking maybe I should finish off with my other blade, especially round the neck area but no I persevered, and after checked wether it needed going over with the other blade.But no everything was ok apart from little burn on the right side of my neck.
Thanks for looking.
Mark

Well it doesn't sound like you have any problem putting a wicked edge on a razor. I have had a couple of times where I cut myself right under my sideburn by just placing the blade against my skin. I suspect, as with you, that I moved the razor ever-so-slightly in a inperceivable lateral motion that cut the skin. Perhaps just giving it a few extra laps on the leather will help tame that edge a little bit and make it a little more forgiving on the face. It just sounds like the edge is a little too harsh for your skin, which can happen depending on your skin. I have had that problem before where I've found a slightly less-sharp edge is kinder to my skin.

Perhaps you're just used to a slightly duller edge and used just a hair too much pressure hence causing the burning on your neck.

As you said a little more time on the leather would definitely have helped. In my eagerness to try out the new blade I had'nt stropped properly and there were still some feathers on the edge, this I found out when I took the blade to work and looked at it under a large magnifying glass. The razor is now stropped properly and the edge does look neater and feel kinder, will be shaving with it again next time and expect a result same as the hollow grind. The burn on my neck as you say was down to me probably being wary of the blade and going too slow across the skin.

Straight razors eh! just gotta love em

Mark

I have found in the past that if I've been hesitant with the start of a stroke I've ended up with a mark on the skin. I'm now more careful to start the blade moving down as soon as there's skin contact. I presume stopping the blade involves a tiny amount of side-to-side movement.