Thread: Attack and Plaster

As a relatively new comer to SR Shaving I was just wondering what problems and difficulties you had to endure and overcome and the lessons you learned for yourself, to get that just so shave!?!

For me the most frustrating part was how to attack various parts of the face ie which way to come at certain areas and how I need to get my hand into position. Plus being and feeling comfortable in making the desired stroke!?! This can take many shaves untill you get it right for you!?!

One of the most important lessons I have learned on my journey is once the RAZOR touches your face to shave and you feel it's NOT quite in the right place, DON'T change your mind, continue with that stroke or REMOVE the razor and replace it as desired!!! Every time I have put the razor on my face and thought hmmm it just needs to be a little more over I inevitably move the razor and as if by magic the red stuff immediately appears!?! Surprisingly this was the lesson that took the longest to learn!?!

The other thing I found is that moving the SR on smooth skin is very easy and comfortable! So to be able to play/practice and get the feel, I found if you have the odd shave with your DE Safety razor or a Cartridge razor and then when smooth lather up and use the SR, as there is no tugging of whiskers the blade moves nice and freely giving you an unhindered feel and a better chance to determine the best way to attack you face thus building confidence!

Just some of my findings and thoughts.

When your lather is not working to your expectations, rinse it off and start over

Originally Posted by rolodave

When your lather is not working to your expectations, rinse it off and start over

Unless you are at a razor meet and taking the lye soap challange.........

[You had to be there and Dave understands! LOL]

I think for me one of the valuable things was skin stretching and holding. Once I got that figured out, and the lather, and the correct shaving angle it all came together. It’s hard to put more value on one than the other. The stretching was one of the final important pieces.

Can't remember anymore. It's been nearly 40 years since I first picked up a straight.

But, yeah. Can't look to see how things are doing, before lifting the razor from your face, was my first lesson, too. Hacked up a couple belts I used as strops, shaved with
one razor for years, off a 1k hone and pasted strop/belt, and smeared canned goo on my face. Then came this place in 2015.....full of enablers. All's good, well worth the money spent/not spent, from the information guys bring here on the subject of wet shaving.

It only gets better with time and technique.
Mapping your hair growth goes a long way in preparation to how to attack the beard/stubble. I have a spot on each side of my neck, that's reminiscent of a smashed wire brush. I concocted a pass I call, the ATG X pass. It works for me, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that isn't totally comfortable with a straight.

Originally Posted by Muttley

As a relatively new comer to SR Shaving I was just wondering what problems and difficulties you had to endure and overcome and the lessons you learned for yourself, to get that just so shave!?!

For me the most frustrating part was how to attack various parts of the face ie which way to come at certain areas and how I need to get my hand into position. Plus being and feeling comfortable in making the desired stroke!?! This can take many shaves untill you get it right for you!?!

One of the most important lessons I have learned on my journey is once the RAZOR touches your face to shave and you feel it's NOT quite in the right place, DON'T change your mind, continue with that stroke or REMOVE the razor and replace it as desired!!! Every time I have put the razor on my face and thought hmmm it just needs to be a little more over I inevitably move the razor and as if by magic the red stuff immediately appears!?! Surprisingly this was the lesson that took the longest to learn!?!

The other thing I found is that moving the SR on smooth skin is very easy and comfortable! So to be able to play/practice and get the feel, I found if you have the odd shave with your DE Safety razor or a Cartridge razor and then when smooth lather up and use the SR, as there is no tugging of whiskers the blade moves nice and freely giving you an unhindered feel and a better chance to determine the best way to attack you face thus building confidence!

Just some of my findings and thoughts.

Difficulties? Let's see... not knowing how to shave, not knowing anyone who knew how to do shave, who could teach me, not having a sharp razor or knowing how to make it sharp or knowing what sharp really is or knowing anybody who knew. We live in the information age. You can go online and learn how to do anything from bringing down a government to making your own 1911 from scratch to basic brain surgery to growing world class bonsai to how to roll a perfect doobie, or making a truly delicious and rich Imperial Oat Stout that knocks the socks off any commercial brew, if you look hard enough. We didn't have this, when I started. The guy who sold me my razor sure as hell didn't know anything about it, just a typical dumb sales clerk punching a cash register, and not very civil, either, as I recall. Razor was a Dovo "Best Quality" LOL! He didn't have strops because it was after all, a cutlery shop and not a leather shop. I had some carbo, India, and Arkansas stones and I could get a great edge on a hollowground pocketknife or a plane iron, so what is so hard about a razor? It's just steel, right? Every attempt was excruciating but I was too stubborn to quit. I knew it could be done. I had gotten shaves in barber shops. This was pre-AIDS hysteria, and you could still get a proper shave from a real razor. I had seen a hundred shaves in movies. I knew it could be done and I knew it could be done better than the hack barbers I had let shave my face, but I just couldn't get it. My learning was all DIY and random experimentation. I eventually got a strop, an Illinois, don't remember the model number. I eventually got a HYOOOGE near translucent stone to use for a finisher, and eventually picked up a Boker in pretty good shape in a junk shop. Now they are curio shops or antique shops. Slowly over many years I managed to get tolerable shaves, partly because I was just getting used to the pain.

The missing ingredient throughout was what I call a "shave daddy". Hams have "Elmers". Straight shavers have "shave daddies". Your shave daddy or multiple plural can be any age, even young enough to be your grandson as long as they have been shaving in the manly way for a few years. Or he can be so ancient that he is no longer able to wield a razor safely. Doesn't matter. It is the knowledge and willingness to impart this knowledge that matters. Now we have internet. You can have a dozen shave daddies. Back in the day, a father taught his son to shave. It's not a thing anymore. What learning there is, is learnt from commercials or wiki-how. My very first shaves were with a long handled "Black Beauty" Gillette Adjustable and I believe Personna 74 blade though it might have been the high end Gillette blade of the day, billed as "the Spoiler". I used both as long as I could still get them. My dad gave me a $10 bill and told be to go get myself a razor and blades, and we could share the canned goo. He was a little disappointed that I got the best gear I could get from the Piggly Wiggly, when he got back his change and had expected a little more. So, I was left to my own devices and cut myself a little, but got all the peach fuzz off and was pretty proud of myself for mastering this manly skillset. Shaves got better, but Dad didn't see any need to step in and offer pointers. I watched Broadway Joe Namath swooshing that razor over his face, and he was my role model LOL! He made a million bucks shaving on TV and Dad was just, well, Dad. So by the time I started shaving, the tradition of teaching sons to shave was lost. That's where the "shave daddy" comes in. A mentor to guide and encourage and well, enable. I bypassed all the gimmicks like Techmatic and Trac II but when Mach III rolled around, I jumped on it. By this time my retro proclivities had let me to the brush and mug, and the Mach was pretty easy, and I was making good coin so I didn't mind the cost of carts. Still I was learning a new "shave system" from TV. Flirted with Schick Injectors briefly, too, and yeah, the old school SE razors which I never found truly sharp blades for. I was back on the Gillette Adjustable when I discovered straight shaving. All that time, no shave daddy. It was rough, going full on, hardcore retro real he-man razor.

So lack of knowledge hurt the most. When Internet happened, I was getting okay shaves. Pretty soon I was getting excellent shaves from edges that I could wave above my skin and sever hair tips. A darn good starting point, but I wasn't just starting. I was a veteran. I just started either 20 years too soon, or 100 years too late. No shave daddy.

As far as actual technical difficulties, there really weren't any, once I could tap into the collective knowledge of the newly formed online shave community. A nice wet and slick lather, SHARRRRRP razor, tight shave angle, vigorous skin stretching, light pressure, and at first, WTG or near to it for the first pass and the second, and I had a DFS, Darn Fine Shave. I never went for full BBS routinely though I had gone there just to prove to myself that I could. Turned out to not really be worth three perfect passes. Nobody noticed. I realized that SAS, Socially Acceptable Shave, was plenty good enough, and eventually I was exceeding that with a single pass.

The biggest breakthrough for me was the LAPPED and LIGHTLY PASTED balsa with a thick and non flexing backing, for sub micron honing. We call it a balsa strop but it actually doesn't strop, it hones, since there is abrasive action. This level of edge sharpness forced me to tighten up my shave angle, reducing irritation, and to moderate my pressure more carefully. There were several of us on another forum experimenting with this, and we found a lot of things that others were doing sub-optimally. Not glueing it up to a good backing. Not lapping the balsa. Putting too darn much diamond paste on it. Cross contaminating the grits. Not holding it in hand when using it. Too much pressure. Not enough laps. Throwing conventional wisdom out the window, led to a better method. This, on top of the use of lapping film, made it pretty easy to get better than professional quality edges, as long as we took our time and did everything according to the new method, with no omissions or substitutions or improvisations.

You can shave with a razor that most of us would call dull. It won't be nothing nice, but it can be done. But a severely sharp razor, while it will slice your face to bits if you are careless, will, if used with care, deliver a great single pass shave, with just a little practice. It is a dragon worth chasing. I suggest you try a Feather Hi-Stainless half DE blade in a good shavette, and compare it to your razor, for a sharpness standard. It is a nearly unobtainable level of cutting power while the blade is fresh. When you can approach or match this edge, you are brushing your fingertips against the tip of that dragon's tail. You can't catch him. That is the nature of dragons. The structure of the steel limits how sharp a razor can be. Nevertheless you can exceed popularly accepted levels of sharpness if you take extraordinary measures. I personally do not believe that the Feather can be outdone by common razor steel, but I would love to be proven wrong. Certainly, you can do better than say a Derby, even on stones or film. Do not doubt your ability to get your razor as sharp as a DE blade. You CAN.

When you start honing your own, it would be a good exercise to shave with a raw 8k edge. Trust me, you can do this. If you can't, then the 12k stone or the 1µ lapping film will not be able to achieve its full potential and you, as the shaver, will not be prepared to take best advantage of the fully developed standard edge. Shaved successfully with the 8k edge? Okay, try a 4k edge. And a 1k edge. It won't be pretty, it won't feel luxurious unless you have been on a neolithic retreat and shaving with a sharpened clam shell for a couple of weeks, but you SHOULD be able to do it. Add a bit of a slicing action to your razor stroke, while stretching the skin good, get a good prep, and you can do it. Do this, and your everyday shave with a sharp razor will improve. It REQUIRES perfect technique. Your great grandpa probably shaved with an edge not much sharper than that, you know. But armed with the experience of shaving with what we today consider a woefully inadequate edge will be a tremendous force multiplier as you learn to coax ever sharper edges out of your razor.

Conventional wisdom is go WTG, first of two or three passes. The problem with that is facial topography prevents this in some spots. The answer has always been to just get as close as you can, even if it is actually XTG. A very sharp razor will handle that nicely, and also force you to stretch the skin tightly. If you have seen any of the shave videos I have made, you will notice that I honestly don't really worry too much about shave direction. It is less important, when the razor is sharp and skin is stretched either by fingers or by making "shaving faces". In the meantime, just get as close as practical to the desired shave direction in relation to the whisker growth direction. It doesn't have to be exact. There is always a way to get at it, you just got to find it.

I seem to have skipped right over prep. I was always in the habit of shaving right after shower, so whiskers were always hydrated, and at first, the canned goo did me okay, but eventually I taught myself to use a mug and brush, and a cut down bar of Ivory soap. Later I tried Williams which was probably named after William the Conqueror because he used it back in the day. It took a while to start finding other soaps or creams. Actually, it took the internet and e-commerce. But by the time I started trying to shave in the manly fashion, I was already doing a reasonably good prep, so I probably discount this or overlook it a lot, but it actually is very important. You will want to try a few different soaps or creams. My advice is don't be led astray by fancy pants scents or 19th century sounding old school brand names or high prices. I used to use VDH until they changed the formula, same dirt cheap price as William the Conqueror's LOL. I now use ARKO a lot, maybe you could say usually. Doesn't smell nice, but the odor dissipates in a minute or two and can't stand up to my bay rum aftershave anyway. It is crazy cheap online, and a stick lasts a good long time. You can get a fancy push up stick holder if you like, or just peel off the paper from the business end and have at it. Arguably, Proraso and Cella are better, but I still have several sticks of Arko to use up. For a while I was getting Godrej Rich Lather cream in a tube in Dubai for about 75 cents, and it was superb. VERY slick lather. Didn't dry out. Mitchell's Wool Fat is honestly the only other soap I at this point would even consider trying. The fact remains that for a normal everyday shave, a $1 stick of Arko and a silvertip brush loaded with plenty of water will gitter done, if you do your part. Use a big brush, relather as needed, don't neglect to do this. If your lather dries out, you don't have lather anymore, just dry soap scum.

Phew..!!!

I gotta ask. How long it takes ya, ta type that all up, in all. I'd have to take a nap, which I did during trying to read it all, and didn't , though interesting, sometimes overbearing. TMI

Originally Posted by outback

Phew..!!!

I gotta ask. How long it takes ya, ta type that all up, in all. I'd have to take a nap, which I did during trying to read it all, and didn't , though interesting, sometimes overbearing. TMI

Well, I type fast, between sips of my morning cappuccino. In the evenings, my nightly Sazerac slows me down a little and then I nod off in the middle of typing.

My experience was kinda opposite, I only cut myself a couple of times and you guess what, every single time I felt it might cut, it cut indeed...