Thank you, sir. It's a great piece of hardware. I may have finally found one that can be too aggressive. Time will tell. I'd like to see what it would do to a weeks growth...but I'd have to skip too many shaves.

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Stretch your cheek skin straight up tight, and cock your razor a bit to quarter into going a little against the grain.

Skin stretching is the Jedi Masters most important exercise.

Haha. Thanks Jason.
I just pretty much test lathered it a few times to break it in but never really tried it for a shave . I have a thread started where I documented making the knot and a few pics also of refurbishing the handle too.
http://theshaveden.com/forums/threads/home-made-synthetic-knot-experiment.58838/
It's still a bit stiff but makes a great lather . Smaller knot but still does the job efficiently.

Doug, it may help to consider my Dad's experience with cancer. He had three bouts with it, and three surgeries and two rounds of chemotherapy. After the second round of chemotherapy, the local Cancer Clinic pronounced him a "failure of treatment":

His first cancer was a colon cancer. A surgeon opened him up, reomoved about a foot of gut to be sure of getting the whole tumorous area, then spliced him all back together again. After which he had a year of chemotherapy. Not fun.

At the end of the year, he had a general examination and the X-rays showed a spot in his lower right lung. The doctors considered it was a secondary spread from the original colon cancer. Secondaries are considered Not Good because they indicate the cancer may have spread to several organ systems. However, his surgeon took a divot out of his lung to remove the spot, sewed him up, and then he had another six months of chemo. Definitely not fun.

At the end of six months, he had a general examination, and the X-rays showed an identical spot in almost the same spot on his lower right lung. The oncologists thought it was another secondary and at this point pronounced the chemo treatment "a failure". His general surgeon thought it might be just a few cells that broke off the first lung cancer but had been slowed from doing much by the chemo, and in any event, it only showed in a small area. So he said he would simply cut out a bigger chunk than last time. Dad asked what he would do if it happened again, and the surgeon said "Cut more until either we run out of cancer or lung." Very reassuring. (He was a dour Scots type.)

Dad said "Cut. and see what happens". So the surgeon did the second operation, taking a bigger divot of lung and a bit of diaphragm and sewed Dad up again. This time Dad didn't have more chemo, because it had been "a failure" and there was "no point".

In retrospect, the Cancer Clinic may have been right to write Dad off as a "failure of treatment", because he did eventually die ... 20 years later ... at age 84 ... of a stroke. No further recurrence of cancer ever.

From which I drew three morals about cancer and its treatment:

1. It's a tricky area, where a lot seems to depend on the patient's will and attitude. Even when they don't seem to be working, things like radiation and chemotherapy treatments may in fact have done the job.

2. It's a tricky area, where a lot seems to depend on the patient's will and attitude. Experts may quote statistical odds and percentages of chance of success or survival rates with various cancers and treatments, but true experts know that those are just probabilities not certainties and don't rely on them to pronounce the outcome of an individual case.

3. It's a tricky area, where a lot seems to depend on the patient's will and attitude. Never never never never give up the ship. (I know -- that's from Capt. Lawrence of the USS Chesapeake in its fight with HMS Shannon and there's probably an equivalent USMC saying from somebody like Chesty Puller instead, but I don't remember what it is offhand...)

I told a friend who was depressed about his chances undergoing chemotherapy about Dad's experience and he found it heartening. If you find it at all useful, Doug, I'm sure Dad would be very pleased to know that, wherever he is now.

Thank you, Doug!

I am praying your treatments go well.

Thank you, Jason. The blades seem to cut just as well, but there is a bit of a difference since they don't feel like they will filet you open as easily.

Great looking razor, James!

Beautiful picture, Clint!

Terrific set up!

I am hopelessly lost on the thread now. I keep thinking I have read it all, then see a post quoted that I missed somehow when I was quoting something else, and then go off hunting for it, and well, Damn. I think I have read it all though.

This week has been a whirlwind of work travel, daughter hauling and blizzards. We have had over two feet of snow in the last week, which isn’t that big of a deal in itself, except that we get eight inches every day I have to drive over a hundred miles. I am not kidding when I say that I have made four 300-500 mile trips this week, skating along in 4WD at 20-45 MPH. This has been an “old school” winter, and I am completely willing to admit I am thoroughly fed up with it.

My daughter was going to play in the All State Symphony at Orchestra Hall in MPLS yesterday. This was really a big deal for her, and sort of a pinnacle of accomplishment for a HS musician. My wife and I took the day off work, kenneled dogs, booked hotel rooms downtown for my son and his girlfriend, my dad and us. They had to be there on Friday, so we drove the 200+ miles through a blizzard, leaving at 4:00 AM to get her there for rehearsal, dropped a few hundred dollars on downtown food, for them to decide to cancel the concert at ten thirty on Sat morning, because there was another storm predicted, and they were worried about the safety of departing students. (Every last damn one of them was there with a parent or guardian btw, but our votes don’t count, I guess). Well, since we (my family) are actually from MN, we didn’t panic and cry at the POSSIBILITY of snow and leave town instantly, we actually showed up for our lunch reservation. So here is a picture of conditions 3 HOURS AFTER WE WERE TOLD TO RUN HOME AND CRY:




All I know is that aside from the fact that you can never give that chance back to my daughter, just my family, one out of about 200 between the various groups, is out right around $1200 for the cancelled weekend. YAY, MN! We rock!

Rant off, and thanks for listening.

I have been staying well groomed and clean shaven, but haven’t taken a picture all week. Every shave has been CJB Pain Stick and WCS synthetic. Today will be in my own den, and I am still daydreaming on what the menu will be.

If you can figure out the "time is a slinky" theorem, I'd then like to know if that, by simple deduction, would make space play-doh, silly putty, or hair gel. Seems like simple Egyptian math, but I'm a bit stumped. Can't figure out if I made a rounding error, or just forgot to carry the 1 somewhere.

Wait for it...

Jared stole my answer.

Thanks John. I passed this along to my friend/co-worker whose wife is currently going through round 2 of chemo for Lukemia and having a rough go of it in the hospital this round. Hopefully this will encourage them as well.

Sorry to hear that about the All-State event. That's too bad. I've been there before with having to make decisions like that based on weather, but not on the scale of a huge event like that. It's never easy to decide to cancel something. I fret over it and consider every angle I can because I know it affects people beyond just my students. But, I'm deciding on things like practice or performances, not a huge event as you've described.

In any event, I hate it turned out that way.

Than you, Perry. The other difference, as I discussed with our band director, is that it wasn’t as if there were a couple hundred kids on buses with three teachers and a handful of parent chaps feeling responsible for the safety of everyone else’s kids. Every single kid there, was there with a parent or guardian. AND WE WERE ALREADY THERE. IN THE HALL. We might end up snowed in, but don’t kick us out. It’s FREAKING MN! Nobody cared ahead of time that we all drove through worse to get there. Like ten times worse. We are all grownups, and we all made it there with OUR OWN children. I was seriously stroke out mad.

I have NEVER seen a State Hockey tournament cancelled because of weather. In fact, it is almost a running joke about blizzards during the tournament.

1. I think it's fairly obvious that you forgot a negative sign before a fraction in the top left corner which threw the whole thing off balance. (Btw NASA did that on one of their early satellite launches, which went straight up for a couple hundred yards, then curved over and splashed down about 500 yards away from the launchpad... The cause was a missed negative on a fraction in the programming code.)

2. I hope your friends find Dad's experience helpful.

FAVuary Vibrating Lemon & Lime

Mystic Water Raspberry Lemon
B-400 Tuxedo synthetic brush
Suribachi bowl & cool water
Stahly Live Blade w/ stock handle
Feather Hi-Stainless blade
Pinaud Lime Sec Eau De Cologne
I put a couple of my tubbed soaps in the fridge thinking I'd not use them until winter was over. The last week has been Spring like in my part of the South Coast so I brought out the Citrus Sunday products. I picked this MW soap out of the Soap Passaround for a couple reasons. It's gives great lather being a lanolin & shea butter formula & the scent is bordering on flavor. Hard water locations expressed difficulty lathering - easy here where mineral content is low. Still haven't seen Steve @swarden43 around for weeks, so I'll admit I bloomed the soap while I checked the blade in the Stahly. The mechanical vibrating handle gets sticky without use, but gripping it in a shave towel gave full function after a couple cycles. Some folks like (Adam @Drygulch) using the razor head on alternate handles. It's mild so I use a reputedly sharp blade. Whipped up a heavily loaded bowl of lather, but resisted tasting when applied to my face. Wound up the 3000 VPM handle and slowly enjoyed three passes. To get the full effect of the (somewhat gimmicky but at it's time very expensive) facial massage you make slow deliberate passes. A little clean up with the mild geometry left me CCS as hoped. Double splash of the Jolly Rancher Lime kept the fruity fragrance going.
Good Shaves Y'all!

Great point. You are right on all accounts.

Thank you Jason and Jim.

Wonderful picture Patrick. You are really getting along well with the Gem 1912.

Great photo and lineup Rick. The Raspberry Lemon soap has a wonderful scent.

Aah, I don’t mean to sound pissy towards you. I am just pissy about the whole thing in general. I know what the intent was, and it was well meant. But we are honest to God at a point where MN is shutting down because WCCO 4 says we MIGHT get 4-8” of snow.


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Sorry to hear the event was cancelled. I am sure that your daughter was really looking to playing in the All State Symphony .

I didn’t take it that way! No worries my friend. I understand your frustration!