Thread: A few good tools

Anyone else like me and lean towards having just a few good shaving tools? While I am amazed and impressed with the endless variety of razors, hones, strops, soaps, brushes and other collectible pleasures, I really lean towards getting and maintaining a few basics that work for me. I'm settling into routines with these familiar friends:

• Razors - 2 primary - Krusius Brothers "KBSpecial" from a local antique shop. Jung 80 from a retiring barber. Both honed and stropped to consistent HHT by me with the humble equipment below.
• Strops - Mostly I use a new Illinois 127, treated once with Williams Mug soap. Sometimes I use an old, beautiful shell and linen strop I bought cheap at a sale many years ago just because it looked neat and I thought I might use it with my wood tools...glad I spared it for it's rightful purpose!
• Hones - 2 primary - My best success comes off a $5 antique store barber hone marked "Old Timer". That, and a "Victory" dry hone from the same barber as the Jung 80. Rarely, (just a time or two to reshape a frowning antique bargain), I turn to ceramic 2000 and 1000 grit stones I use for woodworking tools and sometimes an unmarked barber hone that is more agressive than the others.
• Soap - I almost exclusively use a shea butter based soap from a local one-off soap store. Some French name I can't remember. Works for me. Before that I used Proraso soap and will use it again.
• Brush - A finest badger I made a handle for. Before that it was the Target Proaso boars hair to get me started. I love the current one, as much for handle's esthetics and function as for the badger.
• After shave - Lucky Tiger for soothing feel immediate post shave, air dried and followed by ...dare I confess...British Sterling Aftershave. Hey, I've used it since I met my wife 30+ years ago and she likes it!

I have others, mostly acquired in my sometimes ignorant quest for just what I wanted when I didn't know what I needed. But these constitute my routine users.

Anyone else operate with a similar low overhead?

- Dale

I have the same outlook. I like to try new things and am always keen to hone some n00b's razor just to see what they've got. I like shaving cream and soap samples for the same reason, but mostly I've got my system working for me.

X

Razors 3 - An Imperial Razor from Germany (my first straight ever), a C-Mon Filly and a (my Lord, I can't remember the name of it. I'm too tired and too lazy to go look however, it's English and it's my number one favorite).

Strop A fine piece of leather purchased from Hand American. Punched the hole and hung it myself. One day I might buy a real strop, but this has worked for a year and if it ain't broke...don't fix it.

Hones An old Barber Hone I bought of Ebay and an old hone that was passed to me from my grandfather (double sided, coarse/smooth, don't know the grits or the make). Only use the later for nicks and starting the bevel.

Soap/Cream Shaving soaps from Freedom Farms Soap. I've got a few flavors of those. Creams are: Proraso and Kiss My Face.

Brush A 4 year old boar hair. Green handled purchased from the local Wal-Greens. I can't remember the make of it. It's common though.

After Shave I'm with Dale here...Lucky Tiger all the way . Either their Aspen or their Bay Rum. If it's a special occasion I'll splash on some Dominica Bay Rum. I like the Lucky Tiger because it's kinda old school, I'm only 35 and I don't go to work smelling like everyone else does. I work in a busy casino and it just seems that all of the men seem to smell like the current and trendy, off-the-shelf, big name, mass marketed after shave.

Like Dale, I have a few others...some different scents and such, couple of different razors on the way to the rotation (I'm working on some new scales and such). However, this list above is my main, go to, routine.

-Pary

Dale -
After perusing your list, I can see that your are a bit of a minimalist, finding just what you need and sticking with it - and I admire and envy you for it.....would that I could limit my lusts and acquisitions so. My only advice to you would be....

...do not....under ANY circumstances.....order ANYTHING from Colleen.....



....or you will end up in the same leaky boat as the rest of us, slathering for ANYTHING that comes out of her soap den!

-whatever

-Lou

Originally Posted by Spokeshave

Anyone else like me and lean towards having just a few good shaving tools?

We have very similar philosophies but a significantly different idea of what "a few" is.

Originally Posted by PapaBull

We have very similar philosophies but a significantly different idea of what "a few" is.

I must agree...

I have a few, soaps, creams, after shave balms, moisturisers, ETDs, colognes, strops, hones, razors...

and THEN I have a few tools for restoration of razors...

*sigh* my RAD is mutating...

A Dovo 5/8 SS razor
A Jemico strop from Classicshaving
Taylor Almond shaving cream
A badger brush of some sort
Cold water for an aftershave

Thats pretty much what I've used most days, going on a few years now.

C. Fried Schmidt "Revisor" 6/8 - I have two of these that I rotate occasionally

Tony Miller #1 strop

Badger brush that was part of a Mach3 "set" with brush stand and pewter soap dish

Williams soap

Pinaud Clubman

Those are what I use every day. I also have a Tony Miller bench hone for touch-ups, and a Norton that I used to put the initial edge on the razors.

I own most of a Henckels 7-day set, a Dubl Duck Satinedge and a few others. But they mostly just sit. I have 2 3" pieces of leather from Hand American for a strop project some day. I have a few barber hones (Swaty, Cushion Strop, Carborundum).