By far this post has to be one of the best I have read one here in a long time kudos gentlemen I have learned and enjoyed.Take care 45auto
straight razors are a different design entirely. they may be made out of fairly thick stock, but they are hollow ground as opposed to flat ground. this allows for a very fine/delicate edge.
My blade angle is always 30 degrees or less for my DE's. Their design is excellent and has been for more than 100 years. And keep in mind a straight is honed. They aren't as sharp as a machine made blade such as a DE, SE or Injector, they have more forgiving angles compared to a hand honed piece of steel.
So looking back at your first picture of the EJ, and I started to think (uh oh... Danger!) and do a little testing. I think you might be measuring wrong. I looked at how I use my EJ and I don't rest the safety bar on my face, instead the cap is resting on my face. By doing that - the angle is much shallower (I'm eyeballing 15 - 20 degrees) than 30. Essentially I use whatever angle starts to just grab the hairs - for me this is a low angle; for others it might be closer to 30 - 45. Also I'll note different DE blades will start to grab at different angles too. For me Feather, Gillette Yellow, Astras, and Personnas are all pretty shallow angles; however the Sharks, Derby, Merkur, Lord all seem to require a larger angle. And just to sorta coincide with the theory - the first set of DEs I usually get 7 +-1 day. The second set is toast within 2 - 3 days. Also the second set of blades are noticeably thicker FWIW.
That Merkur is at he wrong angle due to user error. My old EJ I had a very comfortable shave that didn't involve scraping a blade due to bad design.
And if the shaver changes the angle on the razor so more of the top cap is against the face than the safety bar...low and behold the blade angle of the DE changes to less than 30 degrees. The only issues that happen with this angle change are DEs that have extreme heads that don't allow much play. The EJ and Merkur heads are not too wide for this change.
Not all blades are alike. As I recall it was stated in another thread that like knives different blades are ground at different angles, or some such idea. Different manufacturers have different techniques and equipment. That is the only explanation as to why some blades do well in some razors and poorly in others, and also as to why some hold an edge longer than others. Can we please put to this to rest, please gentlemen.
Frambo, ole buddy, I'm a huge fan but think you've missed an element in your measurements: skin pliability. I am still learning how to better use my SEs (and frequently refer to your posts!), but recently noticed I was using "heel pressure" on my Ever Ready 1914 and letting the cutting edge sort of "pop a wheelie" on my face. This created a very slight "skin wave." Short of freeze frame video, I can't imagine how I would capture that shave angle! This "skin wave" idea is new thinking for me. Sure, different faces have different "mush factor," but I bet every razor produces some amount of skin deflection. It's just another of the gazillion variables that keep the hobby interesting. Combining the "skin wave" theory with nsomnac's insightful comments on how he applies a DE to face, I propose that the resulting blade-to-skin angle comes from user technique. The razor design impacts this hugely, of course! This idea is really corruscating in my thoughts! I was headed down this path when thinking about the differences between my EJ89 and my new Utopia razor. Skipping the handle length, I was focusing on the caps. The Utopia really looks a lot like the EJ to me, but the EJ cap is much taller. I really like the Utopia: it gave an outstanding BBS shave in two passes (plus touchups on the problems areas, of course). I think it a bit more aggressive than the EJ and it has a smaller sweet spot range when choosing your angle of attack. I now think some of the difference could be that the taller EJ cap creates more "skin wave" effect. All of this blather to say that I think the critical angle is blade-to-skin. I think the razor's designed blade angle affects the user's ability to choose his (or her!) preferred blade-to-skin angle. Y'know... my favorite advice to noobs is to try out wet shaving a few times and then think real hard about the blade-to-skin angle. It was what brought my first real breakthough in technique. I think it may be the root of all of our "Tastes Great! Less Filling!" debates. ... unless it isn't... Dude, this is a fun thread! Thanks for getting 'er started.
RIGHT-O! The blade's ground edge is yet another variable. I think everything we can discuss on this is discussed by woodworkers when they talk about using planes. (At their core, all of my razors have the same ancestry as all of my handplanes... which go all the way back to ancient Egypt... possibly further.) For the curious... here is ONE discussion among woodworkers. The parallels are evident!
WHAT!? . I might have to try this out actually. I swill use my Tech on the first try of course, but still plan on looking for SEs.
Another B&Ber got 100 shaves from a single Wilkinson DE blade; I didn't see him mention angle specifically, though he did specify switching the blade to a specific razor (if memory serves, a Red Tip) to get best results as the blade 'wore.' This may be in line with your experiences with an SE, or it may not. Sounds like YMMV from here.
Here's something that may be relevant. Part of the original hypothesis is that a DE razor scrapes hair off rather than cutting it cleanly, right? I found a microscopic comparison of stubble cut by DE vs. Mach 3: http://imgur.com/a/nbO9H (The person shaved with one, then the other, so the stubble from the second shave had one side cut with one and the other with the other.) Relevant to the discussion here is that the DE does in fact cut cleanly through the hairs.
Looks like the DE made a cleaner cut. That is all the proof I need that DEs are superior to carts. Btw Wouldn't a Wookie know best ?
I agree, it'd be nice to have similar photos from straights and SEs. But what would "beat" mean in this sense. the DE photos show clean cuts. How could they be cleaner?
I have a DE which does not bend the blade any has 20 degree angle. I haven't used it yet. I'm gonna give a try on next shave. here it is
