I've got both an R89 and 41. I used to love the 41 but now it's a little harsh for me. I love the 89 though, it's a nice, mild shave. The only downside is the quality of it. The 89 had a reputation for breaking if you drop it. I'm yet to hear of anyone who broke their Weishi.
Im sure they will be fine razors. I find it interesting that Baili chooses to make even the handles on their 3-piece razors out of zamac. Most are brass handles with zamac heads.
The Rockwell 2C/6C is Zamac head and handle. It's actually a better than a combo of Zamac and Brass in that it should be less prone to internal corrosion.
I didn’t know what they were made of, what you wrote makes me think the handle is weighted. I didn’t know the r89’s had a reputation for breaking. That’s surprising.
Theyre known for the threaded post snapping off the head if you drop them. From what I understand, the early Roccas werent known for it too (and those are stainless). So much for German engineering, I guess.
Tonight, to celebrate Germany's epic, stoppage time victory; I decided to pull out my R89 frankenrazor (R89 head on a Weber Bulldog handle). I loaded it up with a Yingjili blade and used some Stirling Vanilla Sandalwood with a Yaqi synth brush. Good shave. I can certainly tell that the R89 is more aggressive than my Weishi but it gave a great, BBS shave.
Here's my travel kit... These little Travel Techs don't get much love but you can pick them up in pristine condition for next to nothing and as long as you can adjust to the short handle they can provide a mild shave just as well as any other vintage Gillette. The brush is a Simpson's "Berkeley" and while it's small (20mm x 45mm) the best badger knot is super dense and has just a ridiculous amount of backbone for its size. I can whip up more than enough lather with this little brush to satisfy any shaving need.
SOTD July 2nd Stirling Mentholated Pre-Shave Soap Schick Injector J1 Personna 30DCLE (26mm, Frigate Class) Dry Dock Lather Bowl Stirling Glacial Lemony Orange soap and AS The Schick J1 is a pretty mild injector. Sent from my Galaxy using Tapatalk
It smells like if you took a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and added a squeeze of lemon to it. Very natural scents too! Sent from my Galaxy using Tapatalk
1932 Canadian Tech (pre war) A restored 18mm Century badger knotted brush Stirling Island Man Soap Pinaud Clubman Gillette 7 O'clock greens 4x Timeless bowl One of those shaves you say "I could shave with this the rest of my life!"
I decided to take a chance on a few Balilis and found them to be waaaaaay too mild for me. They seemed to have good fit and finish and its kind of nice that the blade tabs are covered on the sides but they were so mild that I caught myself using pressure just to get it to give me a close shave and I couldnt even really get a BBS shave with any of them. No big deal because they were cheap but lesson learned on that one.
Not sure what the lesson would be there... regardless, I find both Baili three piece heads to be superb shavers (and I'm a fan of aggressive razors). I prefer the wide cap version to any of my Techs or the Star DE and have no problem getting to BBS on my head which is tricky with many razors.
There are razors out there that ... I picked up a couple recently that I just wasn't crazy about, so I'll find them a new home. They weren't bad razors just not permanent keepers.
Still blows my mind that Gillette felt it necessary to remove an inch and a half from the handle of the Tech to make it a travel razor. The three inch handle is plenty compact. Makes me wonder where the people were packing for.
I agree. I can only assume that they wanted to get the handle down to (about) the length of the razor head or blade box. And while this makes for an extremely compact package I don't know why they didn't just break a regular tech handle down into two pieces like they did with the Canadian and English 4-piece pre-War Techs.
