Don't worry--I love Astras, and they're on this thread, too. ChemErik was wise to title this "YOUR worst blade".
Ditto that. Derby's do poorly in my Super Speed Red Tip, but do well in my Slim and Fat Boy when I raise the setting to 8 or 9.
I wasn't too fond of either the Merkur or the Feathers, but the store brand DE blades made by American Safety Razor were down right nasty to my skin. I ended up fusing them in glass and making fridge magnets and coasters out of them.
There are only three blades that were really bad for me. The Treet Blue (dark red and yellow wrapper) gave very irritating and rough shaves. Horrible blades! The Treet Dura Sharp Hi-Tech Steel blades were not much better. The Shark Super Stainless blades were also very irritating and gave rough shaves. I have read others praising these blades, which just goes to show your mileage may vary.
t Am. They were given to me as a sample by a vendor, so I tried one in my Jagger 89. It felt as if I was shaving with a clam shell....
Regardless of what I said before, I tried a Blue Bird last night and it was the absolute worst shave I have had. It reminded me of dry shaving a 3 week growth with a month old mach 3 razor. Tossed the rest of the pack in the bin.
The worst blades I ever used were Feathers. I'll concede it might have been my technique but whenever I try them, they just cut my face to shreds.
How very clever! Please tell us how you made these -- perhaps you could start another thread detailing the steps. This would be a great way to display some old vintage blades.
I'll make some more after work today and will take some pics. I'll make a thread. For all of them, there are two layers of glass and the blade is encased between them. The coasters have a black base and a clear top. I pop them in the glass kiln and heat them to roughly 1465 F over a period of close to 7 hours. The glass fuses together and becomes a single piece. One thing is that all paint on the blade burns off so you only have the bare metal in the glass. Most of the time, the things behave as they should, but with near molten glass things don't always work as planned.
I agree on that , bluebird are pretty bad, not sharp neither smooth, you need to be masochist to like bluebird.
Ahem....so, here is the toe, just in case anyone is interested. It is the right pinkie toe, removed at the first joint. the top of the triangle looking thing is the toe nail. The white strip underneath the paperweight is a strip of Velcro because I used to have the toe mounted on my dashboard back in my trucking days. The short story is that 12 years ago, my mom broke her toe for the eleventy first time and the doctor told her she had to stay off of it in order to heal right. My mom told the doctor that was not possible because she had to work, and why couldn't he just cut the toe off? He was surprised at the suggestion but said he could remove the toe. I told her I wanted to make a paperweight out of it and to see if the doctor would give the toe to her, which he did. I got the idea from seeing some scorpion and spider paperweights in an Arizona gift shop. I wonder if the doctor cut the toe off with a Feather Blade?
Bluebirds work very well for me and are right up there with Feather, Astra SP and Super Iridiums for favorite blade choice. I have found them to be both sharp and smooth in a variety of razors. Just goes to show you...YMMV My worst blade for DE thus far have been the Merkurs that came with the Merkur razors I bought - just tugged a lot. Bics also did not work particularly well, nor did I much like the Astra SS or Astra Keramiks.
It is too jagged a cut for the Feather; must have been a Murkur. Obvious conclusion after reading this post.:rofl
