March 2017 30 Day Rule/Focus Pix & Discussion

Discussion in 'Shave School' started by NCoxSTL, Feb 28, 2017.

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Rule or Focus this month?

  1. Rule! It's all about solid technique!

    7 vote(s)
    21.9%
  2. Focus on soaps/creams

    6 vote(s)
    18.8%
  3. Focus on blades

    6 vote(s)
    18.8%
  4. Focus on a razor or razors

    11 vote(s)
    34.4%
  5. Focus on brushes

    5 vote(s)
    15.6%
  6. Cleaning house baby - stuff's gonna PIF!

    2 vote(s)
    6.3%
  7. Shenanigans

    9 vote(s)
    28.1%
  8. Focus? On cookies!

    9 vote(s)
    28.1%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. Norcalnewb

    Norcalnewb Magnanimous Moos

    Beautiful, Doug!
     
    Drygulch, PickledNorthern and clint64 like this.
  2. Fly2High

    Fly2High Breaking Frugal

    Jared,
    I pulled out my 1/10 gr scale and weighed how much the demitasse spoon yields and when full, it is about 1.5 - 2 gr. so I should be good in the amount I am using.
     
    Drygulch, RyX, Bama Samurai and 2 others like this.
  3. Douglas Carey

    Douglas Carey Wildman

    I would classify the Schick G as a nice razor. It is to light for me personally. I also find it quite mild. That being said with three passes I get a good shave.
     
  4. clint64

    clint64 Blind Squirrel

    That mirrors my experience with the G as well. I like the injectors but just get on better with the Gem and Artist Club razors
     
  5. 2hot 2trot

    2hot 2trot Active Member

    Greetings folks!

    UPDATE:

    Had my #6 shave with the DE. Using a Murker 34c, Astra blade.
    My commitment is to purely concentrate for the next month on technique. I am not changing anything, other than the way I shave.
    I am so pleased with my progress. I have 3 weeks left concentrating on the shave.
    My improvement IMHO has been an amazing experience.
    I will never go back to a cartridge. :)

    I am loving it and will never surrender.
    Take care all.
    Wayne
     
    Screwtape, Drygulch, RyX and 5 others like this.
  6. Douglas Carey

    Douglas Carey Wildman

    Great news, keep up the good work. :happy096:
     
  7. Norcalnewb

    Norcalnewb Magnanimous Moos

    Congrats! Sounds like good progress.
     
    Drygulch, RyX, clint64 and 1 other person like this.
  8. clint64

    clint64 Blind Squirrel

    Congrats Wayne. Great job on staying with the program. You'll be totally amazed how much more your skills will improve over the next 3 weeks. Keep us posted.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
    Drygulch, RyX, mrchick and 3 others like this.
  9. 2hot 2trot

    2hot 2trot Active Member

    Thank you so much for all of your kind words. I am so excited and looking forward to having my next shave. I am really proud with the fact I have only had " one nick."

    Ok I may have lost two pints of blood from the nick, but lets keep it to ourselves.
    After all we are a small community aren't we. :p

    Take care all and god bless,
    Wayne
     
    Drygulch, RyX, mrchick and 4 others like this.
  10. PickledNorthern

    PickledNorthern Fabulous, the unicorn

    [​IMG]

    This brush is a hard one to score. 999Shave is a shop on Etsy where the craftsman ties his own knots. The perfect flattops look classic, and he has some unique looking handles. I do not know about the other handles he sells, but this one photographs much more nicely than it looks in person. It is blow molded which would be expected at the low price point, but has an almost sharp edge around the bottom, and the scale pattern is a screen print type that while it is sort of snazzy, looks kinda cheap up close. I think it would be better served if it was just plain. The knot is where I have trouble talking about it. Let me start by saying that I like it. Kind of a lot. When I got it, there wasn't a hair out of place, it was obviously new, but it had all split tips. In fact, it almost looked like maybe the ends had been roughed up on a belt sander or something. So essentially the brush was broken in on delivery. The tips are fairly soft, a few rougher ones in there grab you a little every now and then almost like in a pure badger but not so pokey. Overall it is fun to use because it doesn't feel anything like other boars I have owned. Its splay darn near covers the entire side of your face if you let it, and it does it very easily. It has backbone, in that it isn't floppy, and it loads like you want a boar to, but it just feels different when it splays; almost like it isn't very dense, but if you look at the top, it sure seems to be. It scrubs, not right there in your face with it, and I am somewhat at a loss for words finding a comparison. It is a brush all its own. At 22x60, it is pretty high lofted, and I think it would be better suited to be a little shorter. The owner of the shop said shorter lofts are coming, and I think I would buy one. It didn't score very well, mainly because of the handle construction, but it is another case of its being a better brush than its scorecard reflects.

    [​IMG]

    The month got away from me and there is only one brush left that was picked to win, so I will shave with it tomorrow and will post winners on Sunday and we can start picking prizes. I think I am going to be mailing stuff all over the world. You're gonna have to be patient with me.

    Next month will just be a continuation of using and maintaining straights. As much as possible with work travel I will pick one straight and use it for the week. The differences between these razor varies from extremely subtle to quite drastic. Spending more consecutive time with each one should help my technique.
     
  11. Bama Samurai

    Bama Samurai with Laser-like Focus

    March Madness
    Barbasol and Barber Blade Edition--30 Day Focus Complete

    Bonus Arko Episode - 31 March 2017

    IMG_1293.JPG


    Look for an upcoming Arko thread...let's beat this dead horse! Other than that...all is quiet in Colorado.

    Have a great weekend!
    :)
     
  12. NCoxSTL

    NCoxSTL AAACK!

    March Madness & Spring Cleaning!!

    March 31

    Razor - Steam Punk New LC
    Blade - perma-sharp-jpg.jpg (4)
    Soap - Soap Commander Courage
    Brush - Jayaruh #46
    Post - Alum

    Final shave of March 2017. Once again you have all made this a fantastic month for the 30 DC. And, since March is traditionally a big month for PIF's I thought I"d put together the final setup from PIFs and Raffles I've been the winner of. The New LC and Jayaruh #46 from raffles, Soap Commander as a PIF as well as the Perma-Sharp blade. Thanks to everyone who continues to make this place special with donations to the raffles and just plain sharing the things we all love.

    To sum up this shave - hard to get any better than this. I've spent a month or more with three modern artisan soaps - Route 66, Stirling and Soap Commander. Because it seems to be in my nature to rate and rank things (except ex-wives - they all lose) I keep trying to set my order for these three. I still can't/won't do that but....I will say that with the Maggard synthetic knot in the JR46 the Soap Commander is the fastest and easiest loading soap I've ever seen. Seriously - 15 to 20 seconds of loading and the brush is full to the point of providing three passes plus enough left to squeeze out two handfuls. Amazing performance by both soap and brush.

    I did three full passes to enjoy the shave a bit longer. The baby showed up with the smooth as silk Perma-Sharp even though it was on its 4th shave. No blood, worries, nothing but smooth. Great way to bring a month to an end.

    Thanks again for everything you do around here to keep this place so dang much fun and so incredibly informative. Looking forward to Arko Adjustable April!!! (And don't look now.....but MAYhem is only 30 days away)

    March 31.jpg
     
  13. NCoxSTL

    NCoxSTL AAACK!

    You can never beat a dead horse too much. Not around here anyway!
     
  14. Bama Samurai

    Bama Samurai with Laser-like Focus

    Train wreck thread is now served:

    The Arko Challenge
     
    Drygulch, Norcalnewb, RyX and 2 others like this.
  15. PickledNorthern

    PickledNorthern Fabulous, the unicorn

    I have never been able to get more than two decent passes out of a shave stick. On the first pass I can make enough lather for umpteen passes, but getting it into the brush in a way that is conducive for later passes is difficult. After two passes I am pretty much out, and my face is too smooth to apply more very well. I prefer my Arko grated.
     
  16. PickledNorthern

    PickledNorthern Fabulous, the unicorn

    [​IMG]

    -Lutters 5/8"
    -Omega 49
    -Reef Point Espresso Soap
    -Stirling Sandalwood

    A quiet house this morning. My wife was up and gone to work before five, and I wouldn't think of hearing a sound out of the teenager before eight, so it was just me, the dog and a cup of insanely black coffee around for this morning's shave. It was peaceful, thorough and blood free.

    Reef Point's Espresso is such a great early morning soap. The scent is strong, and it has just enough of a coffee note to fill the bathroom. It got me off to a good start, and now I am all ready to move a wood shop out of a hundred plus year old basement with five and a half foot headroom going up the stairs. I am helping my dad move. Somehow when I helped him bring all that stuff down the stairs one piece at a time over the years it didn't seem like such a task. Plus I was twenty years younger. My dad didn't seem amused when I suggested it sell with the house, so out it goes.

    It has been weird cleaning out that house. Mom is gone now so going through all the stuff and trying to pick out things for daughters and young nieces is hard, plus Dad is trying to give me everything he owns. Some things are family things and they of course will move on with me and my kids, but God knows I don't need any more stuff.

    Have a great Saturday and I will catch you this afternoon.
     
  17. Fly2High

    Fly2High Breaking Frugal

    Congrats on the success!! In my 34C, I too love the Astra Super Platinum in it! I think they are perfect together. I get lots of shaves and they are always close.

    Best of success perfecting your technique! You definitely have picked the tools I would have used.
     
    Drygulch, 2hot 2trot, mrchick and 2 others like this.
  18. Linuxguile

    Linuxguile dating an unusual aristocrat

    When I learned what shaving with no pressure actually meant (It was an epiphany type moment that really improved my shave experience overall) my preference in lather consistency changed from thick and cushiony to wet and slick. My guess is that you may still be a little heavy handed with the razor. If that is the case then thick cushiony lather does indeed offer a little more protection from the extra pressure being put on the blade. When I shave now, using no pressure, I try to have the contact of the blade against my face be as light as possible. So much so that I do not want the razor to even make an indent in my skin as it glides along. If I'm using a heavy razor, I may even need to hold the weight of the razor off of my face to allow the razor to glide without depressing my skin at all. At this point, with no pressure on the razor, a thinner, wet, slick lather actually helps the razor glide more smoothly.
     
    Screwtape, mrchick, Drygulch and 2 others like this.
  19. markjnewcomb

    markjnewcomb Well-Known Member

    Day 8 of 30 days of Henckel straights

    I moved from the 4/8 Henckel to the 6/8 Henckel today. There is a decided difference between the two. The 6/8 seems heavier and cuts through the whisker with more authority than the 4/8. It is not that the 6/8 actually gives a better shave, but rather that the 6/8 seems more willing to give the good shave. I will stick with the 6/8 for a couple of days before moving to the 7/8.

    Despite the fact that the other day I said I would stick to a single pass, I decided to add another one today because it was going so well. After the second pass and a little touching up I ended with a DFS. Not too bad for day 38 of using straights.


    BTW - How many of you are rooting for my alma mater, G.U.?

    DIY Pre-shave Oil
    ABC Face Lathered
    24mm High silvertip set an extra 10mm deep
    1 pass, WTG
    Sampsons All Natural Aftershave Balm
    6/8 Round Toe Henckel 17 1/2

    4/8 henckel
    4-8 round.jpg
    6/8 henckel
    6-8 round.jpg
    7/8 henckel
    7-8 square.jpg
     
  20. PickledNorthern

    PickledNorthern Fabulous, the unicorn

    Those are very very nice razors, Mark. I would really like to get a couple more of the Henckels at some point. Yours are in excellent condition.
     

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