Thread: Straights for Heavy Beards?

Well, for everybody who would rather not try to misunderstand my post, I'd point out that there is a difference between preference and skill.

For poor analogy smooth ride on a dirt road of ford mustang requires more skill than driving F-150 does, and preference of one over the other has little to do with that.

Now, if there is a counterargument to anything in my post, I'm certainly very interested in discussing how shaving works. May be we can learn something other than who gets their feelings hurt by nothing.

Oh! No hurt feelings! Wherever did that come from? What is wrong with preference AND skill?
All subjective, Ivan! All subjective!

Originally Posted by sharptonn

All subjective, Ivan! All subjective!

That's where I disagree - not all is subjective, many things are not only objective but also quantifiable and measurable; two of those I brought up.

Originally Posted by gugi

That's where I disagree - two of those I brought up.

I SAW that!

Yep, I think it was post 39.
For example although I like the Filly Doble Temple, I really love the EPBD!

It seems folks struggle with heavy grinds. Some do not like them, finding them difficult to wield. Every time a thread like this pops up, standard statements are made that heavier grinds are easier to use or the heavier grind compensates for poor technique. I'm sorry but there is really not a science to any of this. We can make speculations. We can rely on some understanding of basic physics and geometry. We just do not have an hard evidence one way or the other. You can also mention the tools barbers used after the heavier grinds 'disappeared', but the thing is they still kept making them. I think DD made a 'wedge'. Red Imp made a 'wedge'. Besides some of the 'full hollowed' razors back in the day were not the paper thin hollows. I had Torrey razor that was an 'extra full hollow' that honestly looked more like a 1/4 hollow. At any rate, I do not disdain or cannot use full hollow razors. Well, as long as the steel is hard enough I can use them, but I have never fallen in love with one. So I am sure some standard quips will come. Some hidden mystery of straight razor history will be given as proof, but this is not lab. Anyway, sorry for the rant. I tell you what. If we can ever get together, I will bring my one day beard. You can bring your favorite singing follow hollow razor and give me a shave. After all, most of us will only shave our face. How many times can we shave another. So I am willing to put my face and beard under the microscope. Well, not literally, unless, someone does have a microscope handy.

Actually, over the years we've had many people who find stiff and heavier razors to be significantly easier to shave with than with lighter and hollow ground razors. But after they gain experience they find that their full hollow razors shave very well.

The reverse where people initially have much more difficulty with heavy (grind) razors than with full hollows and later find that the stiff razors shave them much better is much more rare, in fact I can't recall reading of a single instance of that.

The primary variable that changes with time is increasing skill (we'll only take into account when the razors are well honed, not when the person is learning to shave and hone at the same time).

Of course, everybody can decide for themselves what razor(s) they want to shave with, and one can argue that since everybody has their own skills and preferences there is no way to derive any meaningful conclusions, but that's rather limiting and cursory. Looking beyond oneself it's not difficult to make statistical observations and it is trivial to remove biases inherent in shaving oneself only.

I certainly haven't heard of matching grinds to beard type to be a barbering technique. If it were important I'd imagine it'd be taught in barbering school, written in barbering textbooks, and every barber supply outfit would market a full set of razors; e.g. Dubl Duck N.1 for regular beards, SatinWedge for tough beards. That certainly is not the marketing segmentation.

DublDuck had No.1 for barbers (only utility no frills), SatinEdge with some frills for personal razors, GoldEdge and WonderEdge more frills for market segmentation, SatinWedge is their only stiff grind model (after streamlining) and its placement and production numbers place it squarely for the 'oddball customer in the low price market'.
Case and Hess both have matching wedge and hollow models, but again, in the personal not the barber segment, the wedge is done in much smaller quantities and there is no special marketing for beard type.

Historically, full hollows were too hard to produce until late 1800s, but once the manufacturing process was there the standard straight razor became 5/8 full hollow. Clearly, other sizes and grinds were still made but in tiny quantities compared to the standard and there is no consistent marking or argument about these other sizes and grinds to be specifically targeted at heavy beards.

1) Some people have no problem with any type of grinds. With very little experience some people will use whatever good razor they purchase despite the grind. I am sorry. I do not think these people have some inherent skill or gift others do not. You might not have heard of people having a difficult time, but I have heard people disliking or have a difficult time with them. Memory recall is a funny thing. We can selectively remember things that fit into our paradigms.

2) I actually agree. We need to look beyond ourselves to make meaningful conclusions. However, most of us will only shave the face given to us. That is why I even offered up face for study. I was not being facetious.

3) Barbering manuals, hmm, which ones are you referring to? Have you read them all? How many barbers have you spoken to? I would love to know which ones you a referring to.

4) You give a lot of interesting facts about DD's. I have no idea where you are getting this info. I know these are just forum post on one little topic, but do you have sources to cite? You do mention that the DD wedges were for 'oddball customer in the low price market'. I would love to know here you got this info. Not to be confrontational, I would like to read up on this info as well.

5) Maybe King Gillette was not the only nail in the coffin for straight razors. Maybe the manufactures pushing towards hollower grinds limit some people from getting a firm grasp on shaving. However, hollower grinds make for easier honing, all other factors being equal, so you could continue to market the straight razor as being something that everyone could maintain (not necessarily hone) as easily as it takes to switch out a DE blade. Really, why waste all that time on grinding a razor? There has to be a reason for it.

So, to quote Max Weber, "This whole process of of rationalization in the factory as elsewhere, and especially in the bureaucratic state machine, parallels the centralization of the material implements of organization in the hands of the master. Thus, discipline inexorably takes over ever larger areas as the satisfaction of political and economic needs is increasingly rationalized. This universal phenomenon more and more restricts the importance of charisma and of individually differentiated conduct."

I could argue that due to rationalization of the razor industry led to the evenutal push for the hollow grinds since it would be what most people would prefer, but we do not all fit into the bell curve so neatly. The razor industry was subject to social forces well beyond its control and attempted survive in anyway possible.

I can shave with both, have about 20 razors and they range from 9/16 to 8/8 in size and (near) wedge to full hollow.
But I do preffer the bigger ones 7/8, 8/8 in size and 1/4 to (near) wedge, seem to me somewhat easier to shave and
then especially around the chin and mustache area. But as we say YMMV

Originally Posted by Mephisto

3) Barbering manuals, hmm, which ones are you referring to? Have you read them all? How many barbers have you spoken to? I would love to know which ones you a referring to.

I certainly haven't read them all, but I've looked through two or three from after 1920s and I am pretty confident if there is the relation that you suppose it would've made its way in them. After all stuff that is false like x-pattern honing being necessary for creating the correct 'razor teeth' has made its way there. They are copyrighted material so in the library section there is only a partial sample of one or two, but I'm sure you can find such books through your local public library.
The point is that you are setting unreasonably high burden for the claim - if the dependence really existed it would be obvious in any setup where one skilled person shaves thousands of different people most of them multiple times. The fact that there is no high profile for such an important dependence means that one is not easily observed.

Originally Posted by Mephisto

4) You give a lot of interesting facts about DD's. I have no idea where you are getting this info. I know these are just forum post on one little topic, but do you have sources to cite? You do mention that the DD wedges were for 'oddball customer in the low price market'. I would love to know here you got this info. Not to be confrontational, I would like to read up on this info as well.

DublDuck is among the top 5 brands in terms of numbers. Right now there are 135 dubl duck razors on ebay.com, so that's on the order of 5000 of them per year. If you want to quantify it you can run the statistics from the past auctions and get an estimate for the relative production numbers.
I thought it is clear from my post that 'oddball customer in the low price market' is something I derived from the structuring of their product line and the relative production ratios, which come from my personal observation of those razors that have survived until today. (Not formally quantified but I've been on ebay and on the forums for a bunch of years to observe thousands of them and if your own perception is different it is trivial to determine the correct one.)

Originally Posted by Mephisto

5) Maybe King Gillette was not the only nail in the coffin for straight razors. Maybe the manufactures pushing towards hollower grinds limit some people from getting a firm grasp on shaving. However, hollower grinds make for easier honing, all other factors being equal

This is incorrect - properly made and properly honed razors are equally easy to hone regardless of the grind. In fact the wedges are much easier and cheaper to make. You would note plenty of aspiring razor makers who produce wedgy razors and almost none who can even execute full hollow grind let alone would do it for the price of a quarter hollow.
Now, if you do abuse the razor then yes you can go much further with a hollow ground, and perhaps that's the underlying reason why full hollows took over looking at the surviving razors, but that's a rather different thing.

Originally Posted by Mephisto

I could argue that due to rationalization of the razor industry led to the evenutal push for the hollow grinds since it would be what most people would prefer, but we do not all fit into the bell curve so neatly. The razor industry was subject to social forces well beyond its control and attempted survive in anyway possible.

Sure, commoditization plays a role, but the diversity is there so it does not explain it. Filarmonica seems to have put out 5/8 6/8 and 7/8 razors in similar quantities, while DublDuck and most other american brands typically have primarily 5/8, quite a bit less 6/8 and very rarely 7/8 razor. Among the French production there seems to be more equal distribution between 5/8 and 6/8, Germany is similar to US and England seems to have gotten out of the game in the early 1900s. Again, my observations, and I can argue them based on evidence not on authority, so I hope you do not expect a citation.