do you 'shim' your blades in your razor?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 2936
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Deleted member 2936

Guest
anyone else stack as oppose to shim? as in just use two blade whole without trimming anything off them

noticed the youtuber subie shaves been doing this with success and says its makes the blades feel more rigid and less blade chatter too

im going to try this on my next head shave :)
 

Holyzeus

Forum GOD!
anyone else stack as oppose to shim? as in just use two blade whole without trimming anything off them

noticed the youtuber subie shaves been doing this with success and says its makes the blades feel more rigid and less blade chatter too

im going to try this on my next head shave :)
An SE basically
 

slapo

It's... alive!
anyone else stack as oppose to shim? as in just use two blade whole without trimming anything off them

noticed the youtuber subie shaves been doing this with success and says its makes the blades feel more rigid and less blade chatter too

im going to try this on my next head shave :)
There's unlikely to be any gain - blades are tapered toward the actual cutting edge. There's a greater risk of cutting one's self when assembling/disassembling the razor, though.
If you want to maximise the area of the shim, you can grind the edge off on an old/cheap sharpening stone, with the added bonus of the blunted edge being pretty even. I did that with mine a few years ago and it worked a treat.
 
D

Deleted member 2936

Guest
There's unlikely to be any gain - blades are tapered toward the actual cutting edge. There's a greater risk of cutting one's self when assembling/disassembling the razor, though.
If you want to maximise the area of the shim, you can grind the edge off on an old/cheap sharpening stone, with the added bonus of the blunted edge being pretty even. I did that with mine a few years ago and it worked a treat.
thanks for the tip
 

chazt

shave
I’ve tried shimming all my DE razors at one point or another, and have found that using a shim in a Tech increases its efficiency. Blade mass is increased and theoretically gap is increased as well, but I have no way of measuring and quantifying blade gap. For me, shims are unnecessary in certain razors. Generally speaking, razors that are more efficient benefitted less from the shim. But for me, shaving with a shimmed Tech is a beautiful thing on more than a day’s growth.
 

Gairdner

Forum GOD!
Och, here we go, the anti-shimming police are oot in force this morning! Well, it’s morning here anyhoo. Used to do it a lot in my DE89 when I first got it and it helped loads.

Way I see it, you might only be able to afford one razor starting out and at the cheaper end of the market too so you does yer reading and you might even get the chance to try one or two out for free.

You decide upon THE razor as it was pretty good on the first few shaves of a pass around - no nicks or major weepers, it boosted your confidence and it just felt right. You survived it and felt it was a good enough shave so bang, the trigger gets pulled. Couple of weeks, maybe months go by and your technique is getting pretty good but you feel the razor could be just a litle more aggressive to chase away the last of your stubble but poop, money’s tight and the bairn’s are always needing clothes, shoes and all manner of stuff. Who says you get the right razor next time anyway? Nah, the wife’ll likely have yer knackers in a vice if owt else shiny turns up in the bathroom so for the cost of sacrificing a single blade by whacking the sharp edge off both sides with a pair of scissors and popping it under the blade doing the shaving, you have yourself a fix. By ‘eck, it works magic and doesn’t affect the looks of your shiny new bathroom beauty. Wife doesn’t know any better and the funds are untouched. RESULT!

Our forefathers likely did things all the time it being ‘one razor, one man’ and not all of us want to disappear doon rabbit holes.

You got a razor that’s just a little mild but you like it otherwise? Pop a shim in and get jiggy with it, I say. Faff? That’s what bowl lathering is!

🎶 Shim, shiminee, shim, shiminee, shim, shim, shiree, I used a shim and it worked good for me. 🎶
 
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Twelvefret

Forum GOD!
My last new razor was a Sally’s DE made of pot metal. I used it for several years until it broke. And I mean the metal just crumbled. It was before I knew shave forums did exist. I just shaved.

Anyway, when it broke I looked on eBay for a replacement and that’s how I discovered vintage razors. For me they all seemed to work. What was an epiphany was Astra and Feather blades. Not to be contentious, but anyone should be able to afford a $7 Gillette with a few Astra blades and get as good of a result as anyone.
 

slapo

It's... alive!
Anyway, when it broke I looked on eBay for a replacement and that’s how I discovered vintage razors. For me they all seemed to work. What was an epiphany was Astra and Feather blades. Not to be contentious, but anyone should be able to afford a $7 Gillette with a few Astra blades and get as good of a result as anyone.
They're just as good as modern ones, but the prices as that low mostly in the US.
In the UK, not to mention the rest of Europe, they're generally higher, at least for items in decent shape.
Lately, I've mostly seen relatively expensive ones, or ones that were so grimy that it's been very difficult to asses their condition, or they'd been damaged. In all of those cases, prices have been going up, and it was mostly through sheer luck that I've seen (and scored) any cheap ones.
 
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