Okay people, Time to make admission to my question, if you will. Most of us have seen it usually in the westerns or war type movies, the guy that uses his knife to shave his face or spud. Very manly, macho and awe inspiring, especially to the younger crowds. So, who here has been sharpening their pocket knives or Bowie knives and figured to test the edge, shaved or tried to shave a neat little strip of hair from their arm or leg? Then, figured, hey, this thing is pretty darn sharp! Why not shave my face? I'll be the first to toss my hand up high, and admit to such a crazy if not foolish thing to do. Did it work? On the arm hair, yep. On the face? uh NO way! No cuts but definite rash and weeper. Just thought it would be fun to see how many have tried and even more interesting in how many did succeed. Dan BTW, the reason I ask such a whacked out question is, I just watched Major League movie for about the fifth time and watched Cerano shave his grape with a Bowie knife in the locker room. lol Good movie!
While I've never done it myself, you can find You Tube videos of people shaving with knives and axes.
I guess I was just a little more ambitious as a kid/young man. I know I felt like a wild west Frontiersman at that stage of my life lol.
I almost decapitated myself with a straight. An axe wouldn't be pretty. I did the arm hair thing before.
For those who may not know of him, let me introduce John Juranitch: There's a video of him shaving with the axe. He also wrote a book: http://www.razoredgesystems.com/index.php/Videos/videos-beard-shaving-with-an-ax.html http://www.amazon.com/dp/096660590X/?tag=thshde-20 Here are a few paragraphs, and a couple photos, from chapter 1 of the book: Standing in front of the bathroom mirror and shaving with a knife got to become just sort of routine to us after a few years, and seemed as normal as using a safety razor. Then the thought dawned that it would make a good demonstration seeing someone pull out a dull hunting knife, sharpen it up, and shave his beard off with it. Well, the idea caught on at sports shows, and the media had a field day with it, too. It wasn't unusual to have every local television station show up whenever we pulled this stunt. At a show in Los Angeles we were guests on every station except one. Later, to make our demonstration a little more spectacular, we came up with another idea: how about putting a little girl with a dull hunting knife up against a master barber with a straight razor in a shaving contest. It sounded like a pretty good idea, so we tried it in Kansas City and it turned out to be a real crowd pleaser. All three judges gave the decision to the girls, and there was no doubt who the crowd was pulling for. Chances are that they would have tarred and feathered the judges had the decision come out any differently. The following pictures are a practice session and were taken when the girls were eleven and twelve. It's easy to see why this event was such a crowd pleaser. Picture 1. Here are Mary and JoAnn with their shaving mugs in one hand and their knives in the other. According to the rules of our contest, the girls must start out with a dull knife and then do their own sharpening. Picture 2. Here are the girls with their victim. It's always a good idea to increase their allowance just before tricks like this. It's cheap but very good insurance. They are using skinning knives, usually considered one of the most difficult of all to sharpen. We'll see. Picture 3. The girls are sharpening their weapons; notice that we have a right-handed and a left-handed "barber lady." The hone hand "feels" the edge all the way around the curve of the blade. The hone hand is constantly moving, as is the knife hand. Picture 4 (shown): Mary wins the coin toss and choses to start the shaving. Picture 5 (shown): Now it's JoAnn's turn and everything looks all business. You will notice that JoAnn likes to grasp the knife back on the handle, while Mary sneaks way up on the blade. Guess you have to use what works best for you! [i[Picture 6. After a few tense moments we finally have mission accomplished, and a shave as close as any barber's. You can see we are just beginning to get some of those smiles back that we saw earlier. Either they are glad to be done or they are thinking about how they will spend that extra allowance. If you didn't get the point of all this, here it is: if two little girls can sharpen a knife so that it will shave this well, why can't you? All you need is a little knowledge about the edge. Read on![/i]
Call me an idiot but Dad I thought I was the only in our family that has tried that!! It didn't go very well and I think it was your pocket knife!!!
I guess you come by it honestly. lol Not sure if your brother tried that or not, but can't imagine him not having tried it with the group of buds you guys have, out in the woods. I can picture it now.
lol, I'm being quite on this one for a reason...... But no longer! Yeah, me and David tried on more than one occasion. I think I was the guinea pig for his mean ass, but yeah, I've tried it. No, it didn't work worth a damn. I have wanted to try it with an axe though, like the old dude in the pic above, THAT is manly. That dude is half ninja and the other half dynamite to shave with an axe. Hell, he has to be those to sharpen an axe well enough to shave with it.
