Beautiful brush amigo.

23 09 16

That's okay. I was on a conference call at work when I read your response and started laughing ... and I was not on mute!

Oh boy!

Friday Shave

Brush- AOS Fine Badger
Razor- PAL Adjustable / Schick E3
Blade- Chinese Schick
Soap- WSP Blackbeard
Post Care- Crystal Alum
Thayers Witch Hazel
WSP Blackbeard with menthol

Another day of injector head to head shaves and they're not making it easy on me to decide a winner. I grabbed my WSP Blackbeard; great lather, scent and protection. I used the PAL on my left side today and the Schick on the right. Three passes and again I was dolphin smooth. Zero feedback from the alum. The splash of WSP Blackbeard felt great with no sting. I couldn't call a winner this morning. It's now been 9 hours and a winner has been decided. The Schick is a great shave; nice feedback, maneuverable and it shaves close. The PAL has better feel in my opinion, it's not as maneuverable but it shaves closer. The PAL wins the injector head to head competition. It now goes up against my Ever-Ready 1914 in a multi round head to head competition to determine my best razor. Have a great day folks!

Sat. 9/24/16







Wonderful shave with the Schick E2 this morning, need to shave with it more often. Excellent, slick, rich lather from my lovely scented Route 66 Lumberjack shave soap. Three easy breezy passes for a refreshing dolphin smooth finish. Have a great day friends.

Excellent setup Roby. Route 66 Lumberjack is one of my favorites. Have a great day.

Thank you Doug! It truly is outstanding. Have a great day buddy.

SEptember 24 SOTD:

Stirling Synthetic Brush
L'Occitane Cade SC
Gem Damaskeene
Stirling Unscented PSB
Barbasol Pacific Rush AS

Great setup!!!

Excellent picture and brush Jim.

I brought out the 1912 for an encore today. With a fresh GEM ptfe blade the shave was incredibly smooth. The soap might have helped, really slick lather, if I got some on my fingers I couldn't hold onto the razor. I'm winding down SEptember this razor and the bullet tip wil finish out the month.

Thank you, buddy! Hope you have a great day!

SOTD September 24, 2016

Blade: Chinese Schick
Razor: Schick G1 injector
Brush: Artisan badger
Lather: Speick shave cream
Scuttle: Boise MudWorks custom
Post: Witch hazel splash, Speick after shave, Nivea sensitive balm
WTG, XTG

Terrific shave! It had been a while since using Speick cream. The scent is really nice and the post shave feel is great, too. I poured ice water into my scuttle and used ice water to rinse my face at the beginning, between passes, and the final rinse. Ice water is so refreshing! My face feels good after using cold water and even better with iced water.

I did not mention in my SOTD post that I actually started this shave with the new-to-me Valet Autostrop razor with modified GEM blade. Only three or four strokes and I could tell it wouldn't work for me. It tugged and felt very uncomfortable. I put it down and switched to the G1 with much, much better results and comfort. Not sure about the Autostrop. I may just have to pass it on. It doesn't seem to be a razor I want to continue fiddling with.

Have a great weekend!

Been splitting wood most of the day. Now for a glass of red wine, stuffed olives, local extra old cheese, and some crackers. Followed by a nap. Not a planned nap, but I know the drill.

That sounds like a good afternoon to me! I am stuck in shutdown progress update meetings at the refinery all day. I could sure use a glass of that wine.

24 09 16

Today's Shave: Saturday September 24, 2016

Darwin Hollow Ground Safety Razor
Darwin blade (freshly honed)
Whipped Dog 24mm synthetic brush
Stirling Electric Sheep soap
Clubman Lilac Vegetal aftershave

The Darwin is a razor for people who think that the Rolls is too mainstream. I picked this one up a while back and just got around to cleaning it up and honing the blade.

The Darwin is the same general concept as the Rolls - a wedge blade razor with a sharpening system built into the case - but there are several differences. First off, the Darwin is a real safety razor, not just a section of straight razor on a handle. It has a fully functional safety bar that results in a smooth shave, and also makes it a lot less scary.



It's even adjustable. Turning the setscrew in the center of the blade increases or decreases the blade gap, thus controlling the aggressiveness.

Second, while the Darwin includes a "hone" on the back side of the strop, it merely replaces the strop, meaning that the blade is still stroked spine first, that is, a stropping stroke rather than a honing stroke. The effect is more like stropping with a CrOx pasted strop rather than actually honing the blade.



Indeed, the "hone" even has a greenish color. It may well be pasted with CrOx, assuming that that's not some sort of mold.

(That's just a line on the surface, not a crack.)

Here is the strop in action:



The safety bar has a threaded hole on the end into which the handle is screwed for storage in the case.



There is even a nifty little screwdriver stored in the handle for adjusting the blade gap.



Like the Rolls, everything stores neatly in the case.

I used one layer of electrical tape on the blade, which also gave me some "handles" to make honing it easier. I spent some time with the Fine and Extra Fine DMT's getting rid of nicks and pitting. 200 laps on 12 micron film and I had a nice bevel. I followed with 100 laps each on 9, 3, and 1 micron film, finishing with 60 laps on .3 micron film with a sheet of paper underneath. Since I had the tape handles I gave it a good stropping on my 30 Degree strop rather than using the case strop.

Like the Rolls the Darwin blade is made of Sheffield steel and it took a truly wicked edge. I set the blade with a fairly conservative gap and proceeded to enjoy an excellent shave, possibly the smoothest ever from a wedge blade type razor. The safety bar functioned, well, like a safety bar and resulted in a super smooth shave with no hint of irritation and no weepers. Even with my conservative blade gap it still felt plenty aggressive, but without the drama. I'm looking forward to playing around with different blade gap settings.

About the only negative regarding the Darwin is that they are not nearly as common as the Rolls and a nice one will set you back 2-3 times the price of a similar Rolls.



--Bob

Fantastic post and quite the coincidence, I just spent the afternoon cleaning and honing my Darwin. Same as you I used tape so I had some handles. I went with a progression of 15, 12, 9, 5, 3, and 1 micron film. The bastard seems extremely sharp but I have to grow some whiskers before I can test it. It is a very cool old razor. I'm rehabing the strop also, but for now I'm going to shave with it tomorrow and see how it goes. Very cool!

Excellent post. I learned much.