Printable View
Hey there,
I'm pretty new to straight razor shaving (just shaved my beard off yesterday) and am interested in trying out an SS. Just got back from overseas and have a little one on the way so trying to grab one used. Anybody know of a reputable site for used?
Keep the info coming!
Took the plunge and purchased an SS folding with pro blades. Arrives tomorrow.
Hey good stuff!! I keep saying I am going to pick one up but keep getting distracted with stones and pastes and, and, and...
I figure they would be a fun toy - especially good for travel too.
I would love to hear your impressions! Keep us informed!
Sorry it's taken a while to post, but things have been hectic. Anyway, I gotta say, I LOVE the feather system. It's not like a traditional straight, but for ease of use, it's quickly become my daily shaver. I love the convenience and I had no issues from the beginning. First shave I was super nervous, but I took my time and everything went well. With each subsequent shave I get better with it and my face gets smoother. I highly recommend this razor!
Good to hear that you love it. I prefer the DX versions but they use the same blades, always great shaves!
I have a feather SS and use it along my straight. I like the balance and the extra length compares to a half de shavette. I found it more forgiving than other shavette.
Everything in it scream quality
Downside is the cost of the blades and the limited selection range. Also the technique is different
Quote:
Originally Posted by fasacorp
Really, the cost of the blades? I paid 15 bucks for 20 blades and get 5-7 shaves per blade. That means 15-20 weeks worth of blades for 15 bucks. I don't think even a traditional straight will come in that low when you sharpening, even if you do-it-yourself.
Once you have some practice the blade service life will increase.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrWiggly
I started out getting 5-7 and regularly get 18-21 now. We have a couple of members who can go 30+.
If it works for you it is a fantastic system with great results. It's my travel Straight when the logistics allow.
Smooth Shaving..
+1 - The Tang and balance of the DX is worth the price of admission....Quote:
Originally Posted by Snuff
Wow, 18-21? I actually think I could get more than 5-7, but I noticed the blade got a small rust spot. Any advice to avoid this?
I get about a dozen shave with a blade (I am not doing anything special to protect it), the running cost for me is about 3 cents per shave for a DE vs 6 for the feather. (I am talking in GBP here not USD) that being said YMMV.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrWiggly
I am not trying to diminish the qualities of the feather here my friend. I love mine and it's part of my rotation. Just saying that if you are on the frugal shaver side that might not be it for you.
If you have prime it's free shipping on amazon. Been thinking about getting one of these as a travel razor so that I don't have to carry a strop:
Amazon.com: Feather SS Folding Handle Razor, Black: Health & Personal Care
So I pulled out my shave log (Engineers, we just do this )Quote:
Originally Posted by MrWiggly
My first CJB/Dorco I got one shave. It was so bad I thought it had to be the blade..so I pitched it and went to Feather Pro. Latter learned it was all operator error.
7 shaves from my first CJB/Feather Pro
12 shaves from CJB/Feather Pro #2
15 shaves from SS Folding Feather Pro Guard
16 shaves Kai Mild PINK/SS
22 shaves Feather Pro Guard/CJB
17 shaves Dorco Super/SS (confirming that it is not the Dorco blade but the operator)
Then I start moving blades around and throw a Cobra in to the mix and its not a clean count.
My care tips:
Resist the urge to take the blade out and clean it. Not only are you going to cut yourself - you risk damaging the blade and the coating.
I rinse the blade in very hot running water to remove the soap.
Then I gently place the razor head with blade in an apothecary jar with 91 proof alcohol for a few minutes.
When I do change the blade I disassemble the head and clean out the inside with an old toothbrush, rinse (hot water, alcohol)
It gets better with practice...
Smooth Shaving..
Engineers :rofl2: Its all in the data. But yes it does get WAY better with practice!Quote:
Originally Posted by MJC
What you could do with a straight and what most people do with a straight are two different things. A bare bones straight system (with someone assisting you in buying a good straight at low dollars) would be:Quote:
Originally Posted by MrWiggly
* self made strop with about $10 worth of leather (direction on finding the right piece of leather is useful, though - type, finish, smoothness, length)
* a razor with minor cosmetic issues that's not an *it* name off of ebay, but otherwise with little use and a full life ahead of it ($20)
* a razor hone to keep the razor sharp ($20)
That's literally enough for a decade.
To those of us on straights, a cheap blade that's good would be something like astra - which is about 13 cents per if you buy $100.
What people generally do with straight razors, though, is buy $1000 worth of razors, $1000 worth of strops, $500 worth of soaps and sky is the limit on stones.
We touched on this in one of the other threads, a Newbie welcome string I recall.Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveW
They had commented on taking up the Straight "to save money"
I made the comment that one day the mythical Shaver, Like Big Foot, would appear - 2 working straight razors, a barbers hone, a strop and some Crox on a Paddle (and a brush and probably a cake of Williams and store brand witch hazel) - and they would have been shaving with this rig for decades...
So lets all take a comfy seat in the bushes and wait for Mr. Two Razor Bob to show up, shall we?
And while we wait, I am happy that what was once a chore is now a bright start to my day, and that I have a hobby that lets me use 150+ year old tools just as they were used a long time ago (only now I don't have to build a fire or light a lamp or candle or live without modern dentistry among other things (unless I want to)) - That I am connected to a small but tight knit community around the world that shares knowledge and resources freely to help each other...and that I am re-connected to my long gone Grandfather when I pick up his razor and bring it to my face...
Smooth Shaving Brothers...
Dude I sooooo wanted to be that guy lol!! For real! It all fell apart when it got to the one hone solution. But man! I gave it the old college try. Just didn't work out for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveW
I am convinced Mr. Minimalist lives - but there is no way he's posting on SRP lol!! No way!Quote:
Originally Posted by MJC
This place so enables need lol!
Personally, in a pure "I just want value" world, I am guessing that the Feather would be cheaper. I mean... How is it possible to have only one strop!?! Lol!
I was mr. minimalist for a while. I didn't have any stones that I didn't already have from woodworking, had a single star shaving strop, and one razor that I really liked. I had a couple of others, but sold them on ebay and was left with my favorite. I shaved like that for a while, and then something happened and it's all just gotten a little out of control.Quote:
Originally Posted by earcutter
I could go back to having my favorite razor (several dozen razor, and still nothing else shaves like it), with a single strop, but I like having three brushes and wouldn't want to have fewer than 2 (with more than one, if you alternate, you don't have to clean the brushes because they have a chance to dry and never get stinky).
Something happens when you're here. If you're into straights, you get razors and stones, and sometimes strops. If you're into DEs, you get razors, and then you get nutty about all of the soaps and different brushes. A while ago, I came back on here after a hiatus thinking I'd sell off most of my excess stuff at bargain price to get other people going and go back to only having two razors. That didn't work out. I've bought several more stones, another dozen razors and three more strops.
Every sect here has something that they buy in bulk. Mr. Minimalist can't exist anywhere, because if the DE guys can boast about not buying straights, stones and strops, they're hiding half a grand worth of soap somewhere, a whole bunch of shaving oils, about 30 different kinds of blades, several DE razors and a gigantic pile of simpson brushes.
Best line ever lol!Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveW
We pretty much have at least one of the Mythical Shaver on the roster that can think off but I won't name. I want to see if he will come forth willingly. Rest assured, they are out there and closer than we think.Quote:
Originally Posted by MJC
One of the folks I've gotten into shaving has two razors, because someone else gave him one. I sold him one for $15, and he's got iron oxide and chromium oxide. He hasn't bought anything else and he doesn't use anything else. He would fit in the mythical category. He likes shaving because he thinks he's giving a big up yours to gillette by doing it. I don't think he loves the shaving like we do, though. I love the shaving the same way I love eating a fresh donut, or getting my back scratched by a first date with nice hands, nice perfume and long nails - not that I can remember much what that's like.
I don't know if anyone else shares the same view as me, but I don't need to give gillette an up yours, they just make shaving seem like loading the dishwasher or something. I just wouldn't want to do it any other way than the straights, I want all of the sharp edge experience I can get anywhere - kitchen knives, scissors, whatever. I hone my razors about once every 6 months (due to proper use of a vintage linen) so I don't even get to use the stones I slobbered over, but I still have them in case the world turns upside down sometime and all of the vintage linens that I've hoarded get vaporized by aliens or something.
You know how it goes.
Thank you for telling about a real "Two Razor Bob" - for want of a better name.Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveW
If you could find out the rest of his routine (soap, brush and other support) it would be great, we don't want to spook him with too much attention.
My fix is to pick up serviceable razors in the under $20 category - mostly Hardware Store and Barber Supply brands made in Germany during the 20's and 30's. I clean them up enough to be presentable since what I want to do is work on my honing fix. My own razors just need refreshing once and a while and I'm very happy with my results I know I need to practice. And I don't see myself bread knifing and re-honing the same razor to a nub for that practice.
And I know how it goes...
Smooth Shaving..
Two razor bob's routine is extremely limited because he's also a vegan. So he won't buy badger brushes and he won't buy leather strops. He's got a synthetic brush that he describes as marginal (i don't know what it is, maybe it's an omega or something - he said it wasn't expensive) and he maintains his razors with iron oxide on balsa because he can't use a leather strop and thus far, I think maybe he got a piece of neoprene strop at one point and decided he liked the iron oxide on balsa better. He and I are cheap about some things and we got our 0.1 iron oxide from a pigment supplier - 4 ounces of pigment or something for $9. The difference is that I don't use it, and I haven't managed to be nearly as cheap on a consistent basis - just with items that are consumables (powders, etc).
Not sure what he's using for soap, but something cheap, too, maybe a drug store cream. It's apparent when talking to him that he likes the fact that the straight isn't transient junk to be thrown away, but it's more function and less recreation to him as far as I can tell.
The stropping without out leather sounds tough - does you use the iron oxide every day?
I had read this article last year when I stumbled on it.
Recently I reached out to the author to see how he was doing, I will let you know if he responds. From his web site it looks like his Hart does not get a lot of work. I only add this because his theme was less stuff to buy and throw away.
We can all learn something from those who push the boundaries of both excess and minimalist.
Smooth Shaving..
Yeah, iron oxide every day as the stropping. That makes a biting edge to me, one that causes weepers, but he said it's been no problem for him.Quote:
Originally Posted by MJC
I think the parker razor might be the one that he uses.
If I had to go minimalist, I'd still want at least two brushes, one good strop with a linen, a good razor and a barber hone. With that, i could get along indefinitely, but I wouldn't have been able to use a razor hone and stay short of the razor's edge with the razor hone at the outset. That said, an NOS strop with a vintage linen cost me $45 with a razor hone a while ago, and I think the $25 badger brushes on ebay are very good - the ones from china, as long as it's not a stiff grade of badger that's in them. My favorite razor cost me $65 before the more recent run up in razor prices. That'd put me at $45 + $65 + $50, and I'd budget $10 + shipping for a decent soap (soap's cheaper to use than cream, esp. if you leave soap in the razor). That's still $180, which is tough to get people to eat at the outset, and there's no way most newbies would use a razor hone just shy of the edge, either - they'd hone right through the edge and find something awfully uncomfortable.
Powders are OK, but I'm getting tired of either putting them in pastes or finding iron oxide or chromium oxide in hard to clean places (let alone on my hands), and I don't want loose diamonds somewhere that they could contaminate my strop or linen.
gssixgun has this great thread/experiment that helped me start on maintaining my own razors:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...xperiment.html
Of course he has that leather thing going for him so I don't know how that would help the Vegan 2-Razor shaver.
But it is a great read and worth the time.
Smooth Shaving..
He could do that. He does have a small gaggle of woodworking stones to and through a naniwa snow white, though, so he's covered pretty much up to the pigment point.
That's not helpful for someone who isn't a woodworker, though - and to someone else who was vegan or really going bottom of the barrel budget, one of the combination king stone small sizes and a couple of flat pieces of balsa with paste of pigment would pretty much do it. If the iron oxide as perceived to be a problem for the ultra cheap, honing could be done on a bare flat piece of balsa or one with newspaper or something on it.
There's so many ways we *could* do it but choose not to, and I'm in that category, too for woodworking. I don't use the stones for razoring for the most part, and I don't use them for woodworking for the most part. I must have 50 stones that have a woodworking purpose, but what pleases me the most is to use tools with plain carbon steel and then use a single washita and a bare leather paddle strop to do all of my woodworking with very few exceptions. I keep buying stones, though....
... just got a gok 20k in the mail this week. Two razor bob and I have different philosophies in practice!