Thread: Straight Razor Hair Thinner

Hi, I want to get one of those razors which have a blade covered with a surrated edge - I THINK they're for thinning hair.



My questions are:

1) Any one used them to confirm they're for thinning?
2) I want to use it to keep the back and sides of my head shaved a mm (not shaved clean or I'd use a straight razor) is this possible?

Any help would be great! Thanks!!

You would be better with the Playtex Hair Trimmer. You find them on eBay. Here is item number for one 321380392431. There are others. Just make sure you get extra blades. They are adjustable for hair length.

Originally Posted by CharlesDumar

2) I want to use it to keep the back and sides of my head shaved a mm (not shaved clean or I'd use a straight razor) is this possible?

Any help would be great! Thanks!!

I think that may be a Durham Duraplex, or something like that. They are on the bay all the time. Never had one so I cannot say if it would be appropriate for your intentions. I would suggest a good pair of pro electric barber clippers. They come with plastic guards in different elevations that hold the cutter an exact distance above the scalp. The length of the hair would be precisely uniform all the way round.

I'm not sure they are for thinning or more for styling. I would get a modern device like the guys have said. it would make life much easier.

Jimmy is right - its a Durham Duplex three piece razor:



However - they were not intended for hair thinning at all - they were a type of safety razor. A thin bit of blade was shown by the toothed guard, but you had to press pretty hard to make it contact the skin:



There are similar looking devices that were intended as DIY hair cutting/styling/thinning alternatives, as I well know, to my cost...

When my dad had got tired of putting a pudding bowl on my head and cutting round it he saw and ad in the paper and sent away for something like this:



Due to fathers heavy-handed approach I soon resembled a poor wretch with mange or some hideous form of alopoecia, and I refused to go to school until my hair grew back. The next morning, on the way to school with a stinging butt, I was to rue making such a rash refusal - now I still looked like I had the mange and my backside hurt too.

The hair grew back eventually, then my pleading to go to a 'proper hair cutter' won my dad over and I was escorted to what looked like a sweetshop. It was a sweetshop. The old boy who owned it must have been a WW1 vet. I emerged later with no hair at all all round my head, his old straight razor saw to that alright - and just a bit of a tuft of hair on top. A bit like a WW1 soldier, in fact. The old boy was very happy with himself - he even talked to me nicely. Usually he just sneered at me and didn't speak at all. I don't think he liked kids much, despite (or because?) of having a sweetshop.

I expect it was better than the pudding bowl or the diy thinning implement, but it didn't feel it at the time. Flower-power was not long dead, and some hardcore hippies still roamed about. It just wasn't right.

Later my dad sent me round to his tobacconist/sweetshop for "twenty passing cloud cigarettes" - how was I to know that they had not been made for donkeys years having come to fame in 1874. The old boy nearly passed out with a paroxysm of laughter. I began to suspect that I was a foundling....

I resolved never to go to that shop again, much like I had with the hardware shop in which all the employees gave the same reaction as the old tobacconist when I was sent to ask for 'elbow grease' and a 'spare bubble' for the spirit level. Clearly someone didn't like me...

They still make these things - even companies like Dovo make them.

Talking of Dovo, they used to make a vintage (Fritz Bracht era) hair-thinning straight razor that looked like some sort of saw - I have one somewhere but cannot find it, so these pics of a contemporary vintage Gebruder Korte will have to do:



My Dovo version had the teeth closer together, but maybe they made them at all different pitches, chosen by the torturer - er, stylist.

If I recall correctly there was also a kind of toothed scissor made for the same purpose.

Regards,
Neil

Pearlduck made a model called the styledge which looks just like the Durham just it doesn't have the Duplex part. It looks like a straight razor but is designed for hair cutting.