Today I had the knock on the door I've been waiting for, a man from Parcelforce bearing a package from Japan. It was my vintage Inoue Tosuke razor purchased last week from O_S. :D
It was sent shave ready, so all I did was got out my new Kanoyama strop (from JimR) and gave it 15 passes on linen, and 20 passes on leather. The edge was bright and shiny, and very evenly ground, it easily popped hairs on the back of my arm.
I lathered up with a new Simpsons Eagle brush, and Fitjar Fjellheim soap, did a couple of hot towel treatments, and lathered up again.
I started shaving, using only the omote (non-stamped side), and immediately noticed big differences to a regular straight. I tried a shallow angle to begin with, but found the back of the razor just suctioned onto the skin, and the blade seemed to skim over the whiskers. I found it was hard to move across my face due to the suction. So I added a little angle, and it started shaving. I found I needed to use a steeper blade angle than I normally would with a regular straight, but not too steep, this thing is almost as sharp as a DE or Feather AC blade, and I can tell it will slice right into the skin with very little pressure if I let it.
So I continued with the shave, stretching the skin is more important for a good shave with a kamisori, perhaps because the razor is sharper and maybe less forgiving than I'm used to?
I managed to shave my whole face with the correct side of the razor, using some fairly creative contortions and face pulling. No cuts or nicks, so far so good.
Next was a second pass, trying to go everywhere in a different direction to the first pass. This was also pretty successful, some parts were very tricky to reach at first, but you can manage it if you take your time and experiment with different grips/angles etc. Again, no nicks or cuts, but I was starting to get a bit of razor burn so I decided to stop at this point - quitting while I was ahead.
So a successful shave, my observations.
1. The razor is tiny, and I found it hard to grip. So much so that the effort was giving me pins and needles by the end of the shave. I'm sure I'll relax and get more used to this in time, but I'm seriously tempted to try and find something to bulk up the handle and provide more positive grip - ideally a blue rubber Tosuke handle.
2. It's quite different to shave without a folding handle. It is obviously more rigid than a folding razor. If you get it nicely positioned in your fingers, it stays put.
3. It's sharper than I'm used to, so I'll have to be extra careful to avoid making mistakes.
4. It has two spike points to watch, at the heel and the toe. Watch them both, closely!
Overall, I'm really happy with it. Obviously I need to practice and the shave should improve a lot, which is a great prospect because it's already pretty nice. :)
http://i534.photobucket.com/albums/e...tosuke_1-1.jpg
