Thread: New guy saying hello and thank you.

MattCB,

Thank you. I've been reading the forum for awhile. First without registering, and then after registering; I agree there a lots of very knowledgeable people here. I really would not be this far along without all the great posts, library, and videos. I am impressed the friendly helpful nature of the community too. I wish I'd got here sooner. One day I just balked at the high price of consumer razors, and thought 'there has to be something better than this.' A few minutes on the Internet later and I found all these wonderful SR wet shave people! My grandfather shaved with a straight razor and used to say it gave a much better shave than anything else. Turns out Grandpa was right!

Hi Ed, and welcome to the forum !!

Hi Walter, thank you. Nice to meet you virtually.

Hey ed, ed 3 here welcome to the forum, the 3 months/100 shaves is about right then i found that at about 6 months i got a bit complacent and things went backwards a bit, but i am well on track now one and a bit passes, 15 mins or so all up

Ed,

Thank you. Well I'm still slow but getting good results now. I can do my cheeks and down half a centimeter below my jaw line quick enough, but I have a couple of challenges. A big dent in the middle of my chin that I try to get smooth without digging any deeper :-). And a beard at the lower half of my neck that grows directly sideways. I finally figured out the rounded toe of the blade does a rather nice job on the dent. Serious stretching and contortions and using both hands, I can shave sideways on my neck well enough to get a smooth clean shave, but I am not quick about it yet.

I was pleased to figure out a few things which make for better results, and by figure out I mean read the ideas here and tried them out :-). Softening my beard helps (lather and hot towel), concentrating on WTG (even doing extra passes WTG provides better beard reduction with no irritation), then I go XTG which is irritation free, finally I go ATG. I am mindful of keeping the blade extremely sharp. Add in careful skin traction (especially for ATG) and a light no pressure blade -- well it really started working well then. Figuring out the process, technique, and my beard while keeping a scary sharp blade were the biggest steps forward.

I've finally got a great diagnostic for how sharp is the blade. I have some small lay flat whiskers on my chin. When the blade is very sharp they come right off WTG. Once that isn't true, it is time to refresh the blade. I am using pastes and strops to keep the blade fresh, but I've used the 8000 and 12000 hone now too. I've got a long way to go with blade maintenance, but again there is great information on SRP.

Thanks for saying hello! Ed to Ed

Sideways, or at least diagonal neck hair is pretty standard, i sort of accept good enough, i like my skin intact, scything type strokes seem to work along with decent stretching, particularly pulling the skin along the very centre of my neck sideways if not i always nick my adams apple.

After about 3 months i was proficient enough to know aspects of my technique were lacking, so at that point i contacted MickR to give me a bit of online mentoring, i described what i did, he told me what to try changing, we went to and fro like that about 3 or 4 times and my shaves improved no-end, then as i said about 6 months in it went downhill, then i got back on top of it.
My first few months of shavig were at least 35 mins long, plus prep and clean up. I couldnt see it getting better, but it must have speeded up slowly over time because i recently timed a quick shave, and it was 7 mins 10 seconds, plus lathering and stropping, so well within 15 mins.

The sideways beard was the last thing to come together. I read someone on the forum said, "Work at a comfortable shave and closer will come along eventually." So I concentrated on comfortable, but every day I'd try something a little different on the rough patches. I just wouldn't push it.

If it works and is comfortable I keep trying that direction. If not, I try to figure out a way to improve. Going sideways really comes together for me with a very sharp blade, skin stretching, where I point my chin, and using both hands.

The first time it really clicked, I was rinsing with cold water and realized my neck was smooth and nearly beard free! Also if I feel like I am pushing the skin, I'll back off and avoid any burn. It has really taken time to figure all this out. But you definitely are way ahead of me on speed! I'm just going to let that come along as well.

Everything started working better when I started focusing on a comfortable shave. Well and maintaining a very sharp blade...

Ed

I envy you being able to go sideways on the neck. Only way I could make enough space to get the razor sideways is to tilt my head back and look straight up and shave blind and I aint going there. I like my neck as it is and settle for what I can do

Well sideways on my neck has taken some serious work, a little bit of equipment, and experimenting. Amazon sells a chrome 5x magnifying swivel extension mirror. The mirror really helps in all aspects of my shave. It is mounted on the wall 90 degrees from the regular bath mirror. It stays out of the way when not used, and swings out in front of the big mirror for magnified shaving. For $28 USD it wasn't a bad deal. I can see much better. At install you have to carefully tighten the mirror to scissor extension and put a little dab of lock tight on the set screw. Anchor it into a wall stud, and then a spritz of WD-40 on some of the sliding joints and the mirror works really well. As well as one of those hotel spa type bath mirrors. I am very pleased with this purchase. It even helped with mapping my beard.

I use the magnifying mirror and look straight up while turning my head all the way to one side (I'm looking in the mirror out of the corner of one eye). I then stretch the skin up on my lower neck. I can get the sideways passes and still see what I am doing. I'll say I am also listening to the sound of the blade to get the angle right and there is a little bit of 'feel' to it as well. Between the extended magnifying mirror, the corner of my eye, the sound, and the feel it all works. The blade also has to be really sharp. Sideways is directly ATG, so I also get it all rather clean WTG and XTG before going ATG (which is ears towards trachea in the toughest two regions).

This last part might sound crazy, or at least odd :-). I came back to edit this and put the stranger first ideas I had in here for simulating a blade for practice. I first tried a butter knife but it wasn't quite long enough. I then used a rather dull table knife as my second 'simulator'. One of those mostly decorative blades with only a few little serrations towards the end. I felt a little silly and was glad no one could see me :-). The problem with the first two attempts were also the lack of scales to position and a grip that was too different. But I did make a little progress with the kitchen knife. At least it was the right length if the scales were in line with the blade.

But I had a really old badly rusted straight razor from the family junk box (totally unsalvageable). I ground the working edge rounded smooth (not that it had anything to start with just cautious). It won't cut paper. Then I stood in front of the mirror and practiced with the completely dull blade until I figured out grips, stretches, and blade approaches which looked promising. Once I felt comfortable with the 'simulator' -- I'd try it out on a real shave. Often just one patch and one stroke to see how it went. The 'simulator' doesn't give the right sound or feel, but from sight I was gaining the confidence that I could do it safely.

One day, ideas, stretching, mirror, and a really sharp blade all came together. It worked! The magnifying mirror was a huge process improvement, I'd call it 75% of the improvement. The rest was practice with the 'simulator' :-). Now I get BBS across my neck with no irritation which makes me very happy.

A lot of this is in my head too, but it really seemed to help when I started trying to get a 'comfortable' shave. When I first starting going after the tough patches on my neck, I was going for BBS and that lead to too many passes and razor burn. When I gave up on BBS ATG passes and started looking for ATG sideways which were comfortable? Little by little it started to pull together. My neck is divided up into eight different regions right now and I have a move for each of them. Fortunately six regions are symmetric and what works on one side works on the other (just a different hand).

Yes, I've been thinking about this way too much :-).

Sounds like you have found what works for you which is just enough thinking. My biggest obstacle is swimbo who wont even let me alter the lighting or leave things out let alone add mirrors etc. I actually have better light in the bedroom mirror than the bathroom. I actually get really nice comfortable shaves but have 1 small area that is not up to the rest. This same area is a problem even with disposables and 6 passes so to get it where it is in 2 with touch up without irritation is great. I always try different things and I will get it in the end but shaving once a week it is probably going to take a while.