August 2016 30 Day Rule/Focus Pix & Discussion

That's the beauty of a Southern dialect. When someone says:
What happened to the tempura?
We can reply:
I edit.

 

Mostly being a two pass guy myself, your assessment seems right. I get equal results from both well-honed straights and shavettes, but true BBS requires a bit more. My beard is rather light.

The shavette detour has been cool. It wasn't as large of a technique departure as I feared it might be. I see three big differences in shavette and traditional straight blades--mass of razor, optimal angle of attack, and the factor of "forgiveness" with the bevel. Shavettes are very light and require a little pressure, seem to favor a higher attack angle and feature a thin and unforgiving DE edge. This is probably a recipe for a physics induced disaster, and why newbies mostly quit shavette. Straight (or shavette) shaving requires the ability to judge everything quickly by how the stroke "feels", and that ability takes some time (like 60 days for me). After ~110 SR days, I was able to use a shavette disaster-free, though there have been a nick or three while perfecting it. It took about 15-20 days, but eventually I was able to make the shavette perform and feel just like a lightweight 5/8 FH straight razor, same irritation-free near BBS, same two pass deal. My take: definitely SR first for new converts. Shavettes provide too little margin for error to be the logical starting point for open blade razors.

Also, if I may brag on Kevin to the crew for a minute...Guys, everything Kevin advised and predicted about the process of learning straight razor was very accurate and most helpful. If you've not earnestly tried SR, use your search-fu and read the exchanges between @Drygulch and @HolyRollah from last year. Great stuff on the mechanics of using and maintaining a straight for those who are learning the basics.

 

Omelet that one slide.

 

AAA

Day 1



Just like that, and I am back with St Petersburg's gift to DE razors, and the loaded 1959 FB slayed two days growth. Dial was set to nine. One pass with the grain, and one against left me near BBS. Cold water, Alum and Veg. Let's see how long GSB lasts on nine. 30 Day Rule in effect. In good news, the high on Thursday may only be in the low 70s. Other than that...all is quiet in Colorado.

Have a nice Wednesday!

​

 

Being from Alabama, you'll recognize my favorite Southern word, ahmoan. That one word replaces the entire phrase; I am going to.
Ahmoan go to the store.
Ahmoan go shave.
Ahmoan twist off your arm and beat you with the bloody end.

 

My grammar is in heaven, grampaw too.

 

Welcome! You can shave whenever you want to. Have fun!

 

Welcome to the thread! These guys have helped me a bunch and there is lots of fun too. I hope you enjoy your time here.

 

August Focus Day 3:

Stirling Synthetic Brush
Palmolive Classic SC
Gillette Super Adjustable
Stirling Unscented PSB
Clubman AS

My first shave with this razor, and I set it to 5. It seemed a bit aggressive compared to my Fatboy. Looking at the blade exposure, and the blade has very little curvature to it. I will have to compare it to my other Gillette TTO razors when I get home this evening. I did get a DFS out if it, so it was a good shave. A little Clubman to finish it up, and I am off to work. I hope everyone has a great day!

 

Once again no focus or rules for August. Here are a few shaves.

 

Machiavellian what a lovely word. My selling technic was needs satisfaction. Establish what their needs are then meet those needs.

 

I had a Mexican guy translate a mountain man for me the other day. After 10 years here I still can't understand the heaviest accents.

@NCoxSTL I'm sleeping on a $14 airbed, how much do you wish I was in STL?

No shave today. I have a day off because this weekend is the local crafts fair. It pulls in tourists from all over and makes the local lives hellish for most of a week. So they are having me work the entire bad part. I'll be cooking double portions of everything in the kitchen this week.

 

Stunning.

 

August 3, 2106

Razor: 60's SuperSpeed
Blade: German Wilkie (1)
Brush: Floppy Chinese Badger
Soap: Arko!

I liked the Arko enough yesterday that I decided to bring it back for a second day. A couple of changes from yesterday's shave, though: 1) I decided to try a suggestion I got a while ago and artificially shortened the loft of the floppy badger by putting a wide Zip-tie at the base of the knot. 2) Given the questionable performance of the Platinum Plus blade yesterday, I decided to switch to a new blade.

The German Wilkinson Sword blade is probably the second blade I tried (after the store-brand Israeli blade) when I took up traditional wet shaving. It was a definite improvement over the Israeli blade in terms of comfort, but got somewhat lost in the shuffle when I, soon after, won a PIF of a blade sampler and another PIF of 50 Astra SPs. The combination with the 60's SuperSpeed works very well; not as pronounced a blade feel as with the Platinum Plus, but not so mild as to encourage using pressure. Definitely happy with today's shave.

I'm actually curious as to what was the rationale behind making the Brazilian-made Platinum Plus available in the US. Not why Gillette started offering a DE blade in the US; that part is obvious, but why that particular blade? If you look at the inner packaging (the tuck of 3 blades), it's obviously not packaged for an English-speaking country and the blade itself seems to be on the sharper though less comfortable side of the line. Compare this with the GSB which is a more comfortable blade and seems already packaged for the US market, right down to the UPC code on the tuck. I can only assume that cost of manufacturing and/or transit somehow favors the Brazilian-made blade. Odd, then, that we don't see more Brazilian-made blades in the US.

Enough rambling for this morning... have a good day, all of you.

 

You're always welcome in STL. Your sleeping situation has no bearing on how much I would enjoy you coming to visit....it only has a bearing on how much money you need to bring. Lets start with LOTS!

 

August 3, 2016

Adjustable August
Gillette Fatboy and Slim, PAL and Schick Adjustables

Second day with the Gillette Adjustable "195 Fatboy" (1961 G1) with a 7 O’Clock Blue.

1-day growth, 2-pass shave. (XTG, ATG)



Yesterday was 'get reacquainted day' as it was a year since I picked up the Fatboy and almost as long for any DE for that matter. So I'm now back to my old 2-pass settings for this razor: 7 XTG, 5 ATG.

The end result feels closer than yesterday, 2 hours after todays' shave. Technique will have to improve for my trouble spots (chin and jawline), or I'll need to use touch-ups. I actually did get a better result on chin today. After doing part of it at 5 (ATG) I reset down to 3 and had a much smoother time while shaving and with reduction. I never had to shave my chin when using a DE in the past as I had a goatee. It's gone now so I'm learning to shave there for the first time with DEs. So I may just stay with the dial down theory on the chin for now.

Onto the Slim tomorrow.

Cheers!
RT

 

I'm actually along this lines too just using top down selling. And I'm mainly an assumptive or silent closer.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

Rockwell 6S/ R6 Base Plate/ Ladas (3)
Whipped Dog 30mm High Mountain
The Fat
Mentholated Thayers
Mentholated Veg


Shaving perfection!!!!

This setup works without flaw. 2 easy passes and I am BBS with no irritation whatsoever. Finished off with my iced Thayers and after a cold water rinse and cleanup I splashed on mu super mentholated Veg. Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday!