I just had my first shave with this Gem Razor. I used a feather blade and am not sure if is the correct blade to use with this. Any help appreciated!
It takes Gem, or equivalent SE blades. Always make sure they are for shaving, not blades for scraping stuff. The pic below shows what you should use. Cheaper to buy in bulk than five or ten packs.
Follow what they said and you will get some mighty fine shaves. My GEM Clog Pruf will be the last razor I ever let go of. Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
These should be easy to find locally in order to try the right blade quick... https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/p...-single-edge-razor-blades/ID=prod2041-product
Feather blades are slightly longer than Gem blades so they will give more blade exposure which should make them more aggressive if the blade edges are equal which they aren't. Other issue with Feather blades is they tend to flex when shaving because they don't have a spine to stiffen the blade in those holders. You can try shiming the blade to stiffen it up in the holder if that is an issue or annoyance. Short answer if the blade works it is a correct blade whether the razor was designed for the blade or vice versa. As far as Gem blades goes there are 4 major types that are marketed for shaving with the coated stainless steel ones the most widely used. You can also get uncoated stainless steel blades and 2 variations of carbon steel blades. Carbon steel blades are the smoothest but they stain easily so they need to be dried between uses. I'd suggest on the Gem blades to get a sampler with all and at least 2 of each blade. http://tryablade.com/singleedge Right now as of this posting they only have samplers without the coated stainless steel blades. They do stock the coated stainless steel blades they are just out of stock. You can buy a 5 or 10 pack of coated stainless steel blades elsewhere or wait until they do get them back in stock.
I bought my Gem blades from Connaught shaving UK, takes a couple of weeks but they have good prices IMO. The prices in the Green is what you pay and shipping is reasonable. Make sure you use new blades because some of the older antique blades are not sharp anymore and you will not enjoy the experience IMO. https://connaughtshaving.com/gemss.html
Yep unless buying domestic in the US you'll be hard pressed to find a better price for a 100 pack of Gem coated stainless steel blades than Connaught including the shipping factored in.