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SOTD THURSDAY MORNING, MAY 19, 2022
Had a visit from Jeff (
@jmudrick) , a very knowledgeable shave brother currently residing about 5 hours away from me. Folks at TSD, B&B, DFS, and many other online Shave Forums know his handle and respect his seemingly exhaustive safety razor shave knowledge, particularly about French safety razors. He introduced me to my beloved, noggin-shaving Shake Sharps, Speed Razor/Shavers, French Cagehead razors of every stripe, and this remarkable little French razor, the Vib’Raz.
Jeff’s a fascinating guy who spent much of his life in Cambodia where he owned/ran a number of entertainment venues (i.e. bars). He was visiting friends in nearby Hatfield, and since I happened to be on his way home asked to stop by. Retired now, like me, and a great raconteur, we discovered in our conversation a shared love for both razors and Vietnamese food. I brought him to my favorite local Vietnamese restaurant and we enjoyed Bunh with pork and summer rolls. He left with my Ronson razor in hand.
Unlike the King Oscillator, traceable to Minneapolis in the 1920’s, which had a single rotor in the cap and actually moved the blade from side to side as one shaved, the twin rotors in the cap of the French Vib’Raz really don’t appear to contribute much. This razor appears designed to encourage “riding the cap”. My safety razor technique evolved to riding the bar or OC years ago. Despite that I tried riding the cap and promptly nicked myself on the back of my noggin. Returning to riding the bar resolved that issue, and two ATG dome passes later I was as smooth as I could expect to be with this razor.
My son in addition to ‘borrowing’ my 9 Ball slate, retrieved his Shapton glass stones prior to him and my grandson taking off to fly fish the Ausable River last Sunday. As a result, and with guidance from a friend, I acquired three Shapton Kuromaku stones, the 1.5k, 5k, and the 8k to sit between my Chosera 1k and 12k. My Puma 88 suffers from microchips in the edge. So last night, I rebuilt the bevel after killing the existing edge on this new progression. I was so happy with the results that I did the a final polish on the Gokumyo 20k.
The bevel was smooth as a mirror under magnification, and the resulting three pass mug shave was amazing. My mug is velveteen smooth, but the dome not quite in the same category. I’d always enjoyed my shaves with the Puma 88, but never really understood the enthusiasm so many owners had for this brand. I now realize that I’d been shaving with an unoptimized edge. I'm very happy with my current waterstone progression. I no longer strop after finishing with the Gokumyo. There’s no need since spine leading strokes are incorporated into the Gokumyo finish.
RAZOR: Puma 88 5/8 (Mug), Vib’Raz Safety Razor (Dome)
BLADE: Feather DE (Dome)
PREP: Cold water rinse followed by a heavy scrub with Argan Oil
BRUSH: BG Custom Two Band Badger
SOAP: Mitchell’s Wool Fat
POSTSHAVE: Cold water wash with brush squeezings followed by a rinse with Humphreys WH. Finished with PAA Rabid Banana Star Jelly AS Balm.
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