Thread: Scraping Ice

I just got my Dovo Special in the mail from SRP, horay! I tried it last night without stropping, because I figure I'm gonna screw that up, and I wanted one great razor first. The shave went so-so, but the whole time it sounded like I was scraping the ice off my windshield.

My wife came to watch me, and even she said "Is it supposed to be loud?" I told her "I don't know", but I probably should have said "Only if you're doing it right."

Is this a normal thing?

If it sounded like a butter knife buttering toast - that is perfectly normal.

+1 on that. The buttered toast noise is common when shaving, especially with hollow ground razors.

The shaves will get better as you learn more and develop your skills, so dont be surprised if it takes you a couple of weeks to get your technique down.

I mainly shave with 1/4 hollows now, but when I use a full hollow (King Midas) it sounds exactly like the buttering toast analogy. At first I was really worried about the sound, but then read a lot on this site and was reassured that it is a normal sound. I believe that is what they mean when they say it is a "singing blade". I could be wrong though!

Perfectly normal. A fond memory of one of my early shaves was my 6 year old daughter coming into the shave den and saying "Cool! I can hear it cutting your whiskers!"

Yep, normal. The nice thing is that on the ATG pass, when you can no longer hear that sounds, you know you're BBS. Bet you love that Dovo Special!

The Dovo, compared to my Parker Disposable, is a god send. Hopefully I won't screw up stropping it. Time to read the wiki...

aslong as it doesnt feel like it sounds. I shaved with my Dubl Duck last night and it sang like a bird but shaved very nicely

That "buttering toast" sound is good, as long as it doesn't
hurt.

No sound at all means one of two things:
1) Either the edge of the razor isn't touching the skin, or
2) You have achieved a truly BBS shave...no whiskers
left standing!

Enjoy!

Originally Posted by PaulKidd

That "buttering toast" sound is good, as long as it doesn't
hurt.

No sound at all means one of two things:
1) Either the edge of the razor isn't touching the skin, or
2) You have achieved a truly BBS shave...no whiskers
left standing!
3) You are now slicing off your face, not just the whiskers

Enjoy!

Fixed it for ya

To the OP, yeah, you learn to love that sound. I love that I can hear the razor popping of each individual hair.

I do believe SRD razors are supposed to be stropped before use though. I got the dovo prima, and with it a note saying it was shave ready, but I still needed to wipe the oil off it and strop before I used it. My first few strops were a little on the heavy side (not so much as to roll the edge though). When I finally got a nice light stropping done I had an incredibly smooth shave.

Oh, and welcome to the straight razor club!