since my first DE razor was knocked off the bathroom shelf and broken, i ordered the merkur 34c. It should arrive today. I'm excited to try it tomorrow.
I use my Merkur 34c all the time. Works with just about any blade. Only issue is that when tightening the head down be careful to make sure the blade is aligned with equal exposure from one end to the other.
The 34C is a good one. It really is the industry standard because its pretty mild but still gives good shaves.
You can't go wrong with the 34c. It's like an old pickup truck. Not the most flashy, or the fastest, but it is dependable and you know what to expect.
Well i got to use the 34c tonight and this is my observation. The merkur is much more forgiving than my last razor from wcs. Offhand i dont know which model it was. But the merkur feels like a small childs toy in my hand. The wcs razor was a tank and much more aggressive. I have a sample pack of blades and i was enjoying the derby blades but hadn't tried any of the others until tonight. I used a platinum(i think thats the name), anyway its performance was lackluster. Made 3 passes, plus a clean up pass. Not my best wetshave. The soap was stirling executive man. What an incredible product!! That stuff lathers like an absolute dream on my stirling boar. And the slickness, omg!!! Anyway, after my first shave with it, the merkur is not bad. In my other posts i have mentioned about having something to compare to. I like both and as I've said the merkur is much more forgiving. I will continue using the current blade until it's time for a new one. Then I'll try the derby and compare. I have some other blades too, merkur, feather, astra, and one or two others. Thanks for listening.
i had an ej 89 and a 34c whe i started out. forum recommendation purchases. my first de was a g-2 fatboy i bought for the display case at my auto shop.after my vintage gillette addiction started i sold the ej. the 34c is a nice razor ,but i don t use it often enough to rate it. works well, looks cool.
The EJ and 34C are both in. My rotation after three plus years. Both are excellent razors even compared to my 50 plus vintage razors.
No. Handle only is brass. Re the head according to Merkur "the Zamak as basic material is covered by layers of copper, nickel and chrome." Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
You can get a longer handle for the 34c. It adds to the weight and makes for better control if you have large hands.
Yeah, I've had the same experience. It's forgiving enough that it's my go-to razor with my Fatboy coming in at #3. (My Van Der Hagen Weishi is #2.) The Merjur 34c really does seem to bring out the best in whatever blade is loaded into it. I find that to get the best shave with it, you want to use a soap or cream that has a lot of slickness. Tabac and Van Der Hagen come immediately to my mind, those having given me the slickest lather so far, although I just received used tubs of Arctic Hydra and Artisan Soap Shoppe pucks, so I'll see how those fare. For shaving cream in a tub, I recommend Taylor of Old Bond Street. I'm anxious to try Stirling Scots Pine Sheep Soap, though, to see how slick that is. I think once you shave using a nice slick lather in tandem with your Merkur, it'll become your main razor.
I could recommend the Merkur 38c, which is basically the 34c with a longer handle. It's somewhat more aggressive because the longer handle adds weight to it, but they use basically the same head.
There are a number of after market handles. The link is to West Coast Shaving which has a large selection of handles: https://www.westcoastshaving.com/co...ssic-collection-stainless-steel-razor-handles.
My mistake. I was thinking of my Muhle which is three piece. But as mentioned above they do make the 34c with a longer handle.
