Quote Originally Posted by red96ta View Post
Every once in a while, I pull out great-grandad's razor for my afternoon shave. Every time I do, it's almost always a completely mediocre shave at best. Unfortunately, there are no markings on the blade other than 'Pippin' and the line in the box says that it was made of 'the finest Sheffield steel'. I know how to hone and it has a good edge on it, but I can rarely get past DFS without spending excessive amounts of time fretting over going back over areas that should have been taken care of the second time around

So the question is...does anybody else have razors that offer a mediocre shave, or was great-granddad a cheapskate and opted for a no-name razor instead of springing for the .50 better model, or do you think that he was sucked into the blade because it was one of those blades that had the smile forged from the beginning?

Here's a pic before I cleaned the thing up:

<pic deleted>

There was some rust on the edge, but I honed it all out until I got a good clean edge.
Cheapskate?? Maybe, but he did buy a sheffield blade and it apparently worked for him. Different blades require different techniques. Sometimes a subtle tweak of blade angle or pressure and you've suddenly got a beautiful, effortless shave. It could also be that your beard is a bit more challenging than his. Try shaving with it for an entire week and see what your shaves are like after a few days. I know for me, it takes a few shaves to adjust to a new blade.

Also, if those 3 items in the pic were your grandad's... he didn't skimp on the knife or the fountain pen. Why would he with the razor?