Thread: Fiddling With Our Equipment

I do wonder if we spend too much time fiddling with out gear than we should be spending. At times from reading the posts it seems we spend more time lapping, flattening, pasting, dressing, etc.... than we do shaving. Is the prep really needed or are we just bored and waiting for our beards to grow??

I wonder if we get so consumed with our hobby that we keeping looking for one more way to spend a few more minutes with or razors, hones, strops, etc.....

I guess this ties into my thread a few months back "What Phase Are You In" in which I asked what phase of collection and using you are in. This time though instead of asking what or how many razors you are buying I am wondering how we spend our shave related time?

Tony

Hmmm, I gues I should have commented on how I now spend my shave related time. Between my real job, my strop business, my wife and my daughter at college I have limited time. I still love straight razor shaving, I occasionally use one of my vintage German DE razors too to finish up but I have slacked off on buying and fiddling with razors.
I have a 2 week rotation of really nice razors and a few brushes and creams. I look forward to selecting a brush and razor each morning. I enjoy slowly stropping before shaving. I have little time to sit and hone or work on my blades though nor a real desire to do so. I have actually been enjoying sending a few out every now and then, getting them back and going WOW, Lynn or EL really knows their stuff. It almost like the thrill of getting a new razor but only spending $15-20 to do so <g>. yes, I do still have a few hones I just love and every so often it is fun to sit down with a Belgian, or Escher or a new paddle/leather idea and playing with a razor. That though has not taken over as a hobby for me though.

So.....are you a shaver, a honer, a restorer or all combined into one well rounded razor guru ?

Tony

(btw, I mention Lynn and El for sharpening as they are two guys I have used recently. Randy as done a few for me too and I know there are quite a few others out there doing great work, I just have not personally used them...yet<g>)

I guess I'm sorta all 3, but always working on improvement in all 3 areas.

That's why Mr Gillette made a fortune with his disposable blades when they came out. The average joe out there wanted no part with all the fiddling and would gladly pay dearly to just through away a blade after a few uses and pop in another and be ready to go.

Its only us fanatics that would view such drudgery with enthusiasm and would enjoy doing all this stuff. Being retired I have all the time in the world to spend as I please (well not actually) but it's one activity to pass the time.

I think this just reflects the relative learning curves. It's easy to learn to shave with a sharp straight, learning to keep it that way is the hard part.

This reminds me of a previous AD for old mechanical watches. There came a point where, in order to keep up with my collection, I'd have had to spend 15 minutes winding all my watches each morning (since mechanical watches wear down from non-use, rather than from use). Now I wind the one I'm wearing each day, and when I switch to another, I have to spend a little time setting the date.

Right now, the only time I have to spend with my gear is in the morning when I select, strop, and shave. I wake up a little early so I can have time to enjoy it, and it's wonderful time for me. I'm never fully done with it when I have to leave for work, and that probably keeps me looking forward to the next day. Soon, I'll have acquired enough stuff that I'll need to find a better way to store/organize it. I think this will probably be a decisive phase for me, because if I end up with extra room I'll start to buy more to fill it out, and if I end up with less room, I'm going to have to start using up the stuff I already have.

At the moment I've still got RAD, so I'm honing razors as they come in, and occasionally go on a honing binge when I think my honing skills have improved enough to warrant bringing them up to the new level of snuff.

I don't really have a daily rotation. Because of the humidity here any razor that isn't being used within a day gets wiped down with oil, so frequent rotations are kind of annoying. I tend to pick one on Monday and stick with it through the entire week, unless a new razor arrives, in which case it will get slotted in for a test shave.

I need more beard............I hone so many razors that my beard is always left behind.......hahhahahaha.

Lynn

Originally Posted by adjustme69

I need more beard............I hone so many razors that my beard is always left behind.......hahhahahaha.

Lynn

Then, you'd better start shaving those moustaches of yours

I find myself stropping without the need to do so, or past the *optimal* number of passes. I'd strop after shaving, and then after some time I'd strop again just so. I also do more than 60 passes... I really enjoy the act and it helps a lot when I have no browth / no time to shave. Like yesterday before we went out - I couldn't possibly spend all the time to shave but did a bit of stropping and got my fix Then, when I'm done stropping I usually go on a HHT binge! Ting, ting, gotta love it. Especially when the HHTs didn't go that well before the stropping.

still haven't lapped my hone so not sure how honing will go - but I think I'll go easy on the hone as it'll wear down the blade.

as an aside: stropping was very easy / natural for me, much more so than actually shaving with a straight.