Thread: Shave angle

Welcome back Mike. I've missed your thought provoking posts.

So here is my take on the high angle/irritation problem.
A sharpened razor has very tiny, microscopic saw teeth. If the razor is stropped correctly then the teeth are all in a perfect straight line like a rip hand saw.
This gives you a nice clean cut of the hair.
When you shave at an angle above 30 degrees (maybe 25 degrees, but that is a whole different discussion) the lateral forces on the blade move the teeth
out of line and cause them to flare out to the side. The essentially turns your razor with rip saw teeth into a razor with crosscut saw teeth with teeth that are to the right and or left of the bevel centerline. The next flat stroke you take, you will drag those flared teeth across your skin causing micro abrasion.

So strop the razor after you do a high angle cut and realign the teeth.

I use the hand saw example because the fastest way to mess up the teeth set on a handsaw is to use the handsaw on its side. Sideway use of a rip handsaw will pull rip saw teeth out of line causing them to flare upwards. Sideway use of a crosscut handsaw will cause the bottom teeth to move to center and continued use will cause the bottom teeth to flare upwards. (Sneaky trick to turn a crosscut set saw into a rip cut set saw for free).

In either case, razor or saw, the correction is to reset the teeth back to the proper position. For a razor that means stropping, for a saw that means a saw set. Luckily stropping a razor only takes a few seconds as opposed to the time it takes to set a saw.

And now you know why carpenters will go out of there way to make sure that when they use a saw, the saw blade is always in the vertical plane.

Originally Posted by Theoman

... ...And that puts it above my brush, bowl, cream, hones, lights, arm, and hand in regards to equipment condition.

I'm finally really getting it. Nice! Second to blade is way more important than I had previously maintained. Thank you for the perspective!

Originally Posted by criswilson10

Welcome back Mike. I've missed your thought provoking posts.

So here is my take on the high angle/irritation problem.
... ... ...
And now you know why carpenters will go out of there way to make sure that when they use a saw, the saw blade is always in the vertical plane.

That is perhaps the best description I've ever read. It really allowed me to see the picture clearly. This makes great sense!
Ugh! I'm surprised my skin wasn't even more irritated, but nothing usually irritates my skin at all, I could shave with toothpaste and I'd be fine.. (perhaps an exaggeration)
***I have had inconsistent results with honing. And I attributed it my low skill level even though I've practiced considerably. I also have had inconsistent results with pro-honed blades.
I now think that it is not any one extreme. It is a combination of factors and adding emphasis and importance to "stropping" and "blade angle" will likely give me much more quality and consistency.
For me this feels groundbreaking!
Thank you for the good words of welcome and wisdom. Much appreciated!

Originally Posted by criswilson10

Welcome back Mike. I've missed your thought provoking posts.

So here is my take on the high angle/irritation problem.
A sharpened razor has very tiny, microscopic saw teeth. If the razor is stropped correctly then the teeth are all in a perfect straight line like a rip hand saw.
This gives you a nice clean cut of the hair.
When you shave at an angle above 30 degrees (maybe 25 degrees, but that is a whole different discussion) the lateral forces on the blade move the teeth
out of line and cause them to flare out to the side. The essentially turns your razor with rip saw teeth into a razor with crosscut saw teeth with teeth that are to the right and or left of the bevel centerline. The next flat stroke you take, you will drag those flared teeth across your skin causing micro abrasion.

So strop the razor after you do a high angle cut and realign the teeth.

I use the hand saw example because the fastest way to mess up the teeth set on a handsaw is to use the handsaw on its side. Sideway use of a rip handsaw will pull rip saw teeth out of line causing them to flare upwards.

Very nice explananation and one of the reasons that I never gave much credence to safety razor “steep shaving” theories.
To me that is not beard shaving, that is beard scraping.
But to each his own...

My straight shaving mental picture is a serrated bread knife.
And similar to a bread knife, where you don’t get best results by merely pressing downwards, I found that I get closer and more comfortable shaves with straight razors by combining the vertical blade movement with an ever so slight sideways movement.
Obviously, an excessive amount can do harm, but it does fit nicely with the sawtooth picture - be it a saw or a serrated bread knife.

There is not much talk about this sideways movement, but for me it works quite nicely.


B

For me, I shave with a gap between my face and the spine of the razor of about 1-2 spine widths and at times even less yet going ATG. If I open the gap up more I get irritation from scraping the whiskers off not shaving them off. With a DE/SE if you drop the handle past a certain point and that point can vary depending on the head design of the particular razor, you are again into scraping not shaving.

Bob