Thread: need some help guys

ok, you guys know i cant seem to get the stubble on areas of my neck. lately, i have been trying to use a barbers hone and some handamerica 0.5 paste on a flatbed strop to keen up my two TI straightrazors. the thicker one, the bison horn, i shaved last night, and tonight, i used the SRP club razor. i had a problem trying to hear scraping sounds on the thicker spined one, and consequently, the SRP razor shaved better than the other one. i was told DO NOT lift up the bison one and keep it flat. i put two fingers on the middle of the blade to keep it flat along the strop when i use the paste, and i use the x pattern and regular up and back since the leather on the board is so wide.

however, both shaves left me with some stubble on jaw line and then on neck. club razor did a better job between the two. cheeks as always are easy to get. now, i know i probably need to somehow pull the skin up along the jawline better, so i surmise maybe i try my face and then just paint at the jawline with lather and leave the cheeks cream-free so as to allow me to grip better. you think this solves the jawline problem?

it is amazing that when your face is dry, you pull the skin and it seems as though you need to shave it opposite of what you do. by my right ear, if i pull the skin uptoward the forehead, logic seems to be that i should shave with or against the grain. when i rub my face dry and pull, it seems to stand up more if i shave crossways towards the ear.

no, i dont have much problem with the feather straight. and my neck stubble is much better gotten with the feather straight. i think the reason is due in large part to the sharpness of the blade and then the small length of blade. i use the regular professional blades.

would super professional work better?

would i be better off to sell the straights since honing is gonna be a problem?

should i try some 0.25 diamond paste from classic? the one time i used a
sample i did get a great, almost feather-like edge.

jay visited me and watched me strop and then looked at my honing and said it did not appear that i was screwing it up (well, we took an older razor of his and he watched my technique on a dry stone to see if i rolled the edge, etc)

sam

It seems like a majority of your face is being shaved properly and you have problems in a few areas. That means the razor is ok otherwise it wouldn't shave good at all. So to me it means you need to improve your technique more and work on those few area that are giving you trouble. I don't know how long you have been shaving but it took me months to get the last problem areas. It just took some experimenting with different types of strokes on those areas. Everyones beard is different so its hard to give advice in this area but for me it just seemed that the more I shaved the more natural the razor felt in my hand and the better each shave got.

Remember the old shaving manuals say it takes at least 6 months to a year to become really proficient so keep at it.

I agree with "Thebigspendur". It sound like your razors are fine. Now its the skill part of your shaving technique that needs some practice.

I have a problem with the jaw line also and your idea to improve the stretching sounds right on target.

The 0.25 paste would not hurt either.

Just my two cents,

thanks for the encouragement. since the cheeks are getting great, i mean great, shaves, stands to reason that it must be my technique. one guy suggested on another forum that instead of stretching the skin, try placing my chin against my chest and letting the skin expand that way. tried it with a DE and i dont know about that one. one thing helps me: QED shave sticks are slick when you just rub it against the face and dont lather it. kinda really slick, i can make a couple of passes.

i just love to rub my cheeks say 4 hours after a straight shave: i cant believe how smooth they are. i will shave at night just to use a straight.

sam

some observations i found by pulling my skin say some 3 hours after i shaved:

if i grab my neck's skin and push up toward my nose, and then rub down on my base of my neck, i dont feel stubble or as much as if i dont stretch my skin. thus i think for touch up, this is not gonna get the stubble effectively.,

if i pull my neck skin at the adams apple and towards it, stubble is not felt as much as if i stretch the skin towards the ear. thus, touch up would be more effective if i pull the skin towards the ear, and hit the blade on the stubble from different angles as best i can.

find that i can grab my neck at the base of the neck, but below where the ears would be, and not at the adams apple, and stretch the skin around to the back of my neck, well, it moves the hollows over a lot and i expose a lot of stubble. both sides are like that. any other way, i get less stubble. might be a good idea for me to use the featherjector or slantbar to touch up with some QED shave stick. now, i repeated this some 8 hours after i shaved. if grab the side of my neck below my ears and pull that skin around to the back of the neck, the hollow of my neck moves over to that ear about and shaving down ought to get a lot.

now the fat pad under my goatee responds best if i pull to the side and then up to expose stubble, bear in mind that this is about 4 hours after i have shaved. this is about the time i start to feel stubble on the cheeks even

so, thanks for telling me that it aint my blade. makes sense that if i get all the stubble off my cheeks, the blade is sharp enough. i may still get some diamond paste anyway

sam

well drats. i went home and hit the TI bison on my handamerican flatbed strop. went like 30 rounds this time, even using some "x" pattern. seemed to tighten up the razors edge.

1) anything wrong with using the handamerican strop say every other shave to strop with instead of plain leather? what happens if i strop/hone it like this every other shave?

well, neck got irritated by shaving new ways. and it is hard to pull the skin towards the ear, even using a towel. now when my neck is dry i can yank it almost around my head. i do notice, after shaving, and pulling my neck skin UP, that when i feel for stubble, i cant feel any. what does that tell me, that a south to north touchup is not gonna cut anything?

When i pull skin down on my neck at the base of it, i dont feel as much stubble but do above the adams apple.

if i pull skin at my adams apple in to the adams apple no stubble. if i pull it towards the side and to my ear, most stubble

what do you suggest

sam

You keep talking about up and down and stretching this way and that. It presupposes a bit that we'll understand what you mean. Different men's beards grow in different ways. Some hairs which I thought were growing one way on my face, are actually different. I find I get the best purchase on the whisker by stretching from behind the grain, whichever way it grows.

X

Xman is right, stretching behind the grain is the best way to go. If you keep stretching every which way you will always feel a little stubble here and there it doesn't mean you have not gotten a good close shave.

I can shave with an electric razor and my neck which is my problem area too feels as smooth as a baby's bottom but five hours later I have a shadow. With a straight I can feel a little stubble but 12 hours later the stubble is no worse and there's no shadow.

With me I find to really get everything on my neck I have to shave straight across my neck. I can run my hand up and down my neck and its real smooth but run it sideways and yes there is a bit of stubble. I haven't found any practical way of shaving straight sideways across my neck with a typical straight without killing myself. I've tried varies angles and arcs and for me it just doesn't work. Now I have a traditional Japanese Straight which is half the length of a usual straight and I can do it with that. But quite honestly its not that important to me so I rarely bother. Also remember the more times you run the razor over your face to get that last micron of stubble the more you risk irritation. It turns into the law of diminishing returns.

i have tried stretching both above and below the area to be shaved, and then even to the side by using the thumb and forefinger trick. one thing, man, my cheeks never feel better than after a straight shave. i can not imagine not wanting to straight shave just for that feeling. im gonna try, i hope, the feather injector thing that joe lerch uses for touch up. i can feel down the neck after i shave and still have stubble, so in that way, i am different from the bigspendur. one thing i know is that the south to north pass on the neck does not do that much for me. i can lift the skin up towards the ceiling on my neck and it seems as though stubble hides from me. now on the cheeks, that is where it stands up. just the opposite on the downwards pass. i dont feel much stubble pulling down towards the floor on the cheeks but do on the neck. great to know this for touch up. on the neck, i expose the most stubble when i pull the skin towards each ear.

sam

Originally Posted by finsfan

however, both shaves left me with some stubble on jaw line and then on neck. club razor did a better job between the two. cheeks as always are easy to get. now, i know i probably need to somehow pull the skin up along the jawline better, so i surmise maybe i try my face and then just paint at the jawline with lather and leave the cheeks cream-free so as to allow me to grip better. you think this solves the jawline problem?

Stretchng always makes a big difference on the neck for me. But you need to stretch right. Unless the whiskers are standing straighjt up there's a good stretch direction and a bad one. WHichever way the whiskers lean, you want to stretch from the other direction. That makes the whiskers stand up. Stretching from the opposit direction makes them lie down. So , you need to study the stubble after it's grown in and remember how to stretch on each part of your neck.

I do stretching as follows: Going against the grain: I take a forward pass creating a strip right along the jawline; I stretch from theregoing up on the cheeks and down on the neck; I advance the stretch point with the razor. Admittedly, I'm stretching opposit to the way I told you, but I'm going against the grain so the razor will lift the whiskers. If I was going with or across the grain, I would worry more about stretching so as to stand up the whiskers. I gave this example to show how you can find places from which to stretch.