You might also consider vintage razors, a lot of them are brass and they've stood the test of time to get this far.
Alternatively, if what you really want is machined stainless you can probably get it for that price from dscosmetic or yaqi on AliExpress. They have many models so it'd be worth searching out some reviews.
There are also thick framebacks but they're basically just like a light wedge so I think you're right to prioritise the Japanese ones.
I like the look of tapered blades and was lucky enough to score one but it's been at my brother's place waiting for scales for a while now. One day.
Rattlers are neat but also basically feel like a light wedge however I have this one smaller one I quite like, took a nice edge, slight smile, etc. sometimes a razor just fits.
"Lancet" is what Mappin called these, but there have been a few imitators and while I've not tried one quite like that though I have this one with a hollowed out spine that maybe is at least in the same sort of category? Heh, actually that mailcall is pretty topical overall, even has a lather catcher.
Yes, but I have 100 FHS-10 blades and no other razor to use them in😅
Good call on the Audiostrop then, much more appealing than the Oneblade (which I never really felt drawn to in any way) and I liked the noisy feedback from it though I did move mine along as I could get a similar effect from the Wilkinson.
Edit: closing a stray image search tab I spotted this link to an especially nice lancet-ish razor.
For frameback be sure to try one of the thin Japanese ones, they're almost like a stiff hollow and kind of sing. Hm, others... have you tried a lancet blade? Sheffield with a rattler grind? With a taper? Oh! What about the Wilkinson Pall Mall / Dunhill? It takes (quarter hollow) wedge blades but can use Gem too. Not only does it have a roller guard but you can adjust the exposure. Neat thing.
Speaking of Gem blades, you know you can pull the spine off a Gem and use it in that Autostrop right?
Thanks for sharing! I must admit, I was slow to come around to this way of thinking, one soap (Williams), one brush (house brand badger), one razor (Merkur 38c) for years but then I tried a straight razor and that all went out the window so on top of the comprehensive arsenal of straights I have a whole spectrum of soap, various DE new and old (even a few vintage blades), Gem razors, injectors (the twin blades from Japan are amazing), a lather catcher, Rolls, and a Wilkinson Dunhill where I hone the blades (pretty much the same as the Pall Mall). And today I tried this new giant tub of unscented soap I bought for some bizarre reason.
Very glad for the chill low key hobby, I think my favourite part is the utter lack of urgency, and as a bonus my kitchen knives have never been this well maintained. Plus theoretically I can recoup most of the (not life changing) money if I ever have need of it and the stuff is small, it'd all fit in an unremarkable box so I don't really see any downside.
My one-pass few-variables shaves continue. Kismet blades are nice, this went better but maybe it was the soap--my Canadian MdC tribute showed up quickly (snagged one of the last two they had at amazon) and wow, the tub was so full it didn't quite close. Needed to add water as I unexpectedly loaded a sizable amount of soap, I think I expected it to load slower being so hard. Very slick, and very unscented unlike MWF which I find stronger than I expected (though unobjectionable).
Been messing around with some honing experiments on troublesome razors and wanted to give my face a break so last shave I used my Fili as that's usually a nice vacation. It was almost but I'm not sure if it was the state of my face, not having used that blade in a while or maybe I really do have a bit of a reaction to Darkfall so I figured let's eliminate some variables and find out about the soap, I'd been meaning to get to know this new Kismet blade a bit better and compare to AC so I'm going to stick to unscentedish soaps and one pass shavette shaves with quality blades for a bit. That's almost a theme thingy, One'n'done'tober 11vember ...something. But I'm not quite that organised and will start messing with it soon enough by seeing how Darkfall goes once I do a few of these then maybe digging out some paste edges to compare to the shavettes.
I like Kai AC blades. This was nice, been a while. Feels a bit sharper than the Kismet yet less stressful as this setup seems less pointy (even though the corners are muted on the Kismet) plus the extra weight lends stability. I guess AC is the wedge shavette and Weck the hollow.
Oh, and this inspired me to order the Canada Shaving Soap I'd been vaguely interested in for a while (as it's rumoured to be comparable to MdC). So far I'd resisted as why would I use that much unscented? But it does have a place and maybe it's SV-ish too, was really enjoying SV lately so here's hoping. Looks promising anyhow: https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/canada-shaving-soap-review.614669/
Side note: Uploading pictures is so much faster since the migration. It’s almost like having pictures didn’t have to be a PITA 🤔
Heh, welllll.... I just tried to upload one. I get an HTTP 400 from the post to the /pictrs/image endpoint and the response body is Request error: error sending request for url (http://pictrs:8080/image): operation timed out. I thought maybe because I was pasting a largish image so I tried a 350kb or so JPG and clicked the upload button ...nope, same deal. Oh, and the UI tries to parse the body of the error response as JSON so it pops up a red box with SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data.
Thanks, that'll do for my purposes anyhow as I only get around to this once or twice a year so we'll probably have something set up by the next time I bother to list something.
Curious what you're referring to re: username spoofing though, that seems concerning. Do you just mean the ability to create walden@lemmy.world or something and potentially confuse users that don't understand the federated nature of the platform? Or something sneakier?
I recently touched up a blade after 13 shaves because it seemed like it was a bit less keen and I was curious if my ark could bring it back as I definitely find it rather slow and subtle (but also really like how that lets me tune up my coticule edges a bit while still leaving them feeling coti-ish). Definitely noticed a difference so it does something :)
But for the most part I have too many razors to get them that far. However I do wind up re-honing them when, for various reasons, they don't retain an edge. Sometimes the steel is too soft for the bevel angle so I need tape to make it a bit more obtuse and get reasonable edge retention (usually in these cases it degrades over the course of the very first shave on the edge). That could be because previous honing has taken too much off the spine or the steel is somehow compromised eg. by polishing or regrinding done carelessly allowing the razor to get too hot and affect the temper. Beyond changing the angle I also find one can get lucky and just need to take off a bit more metal, I wonder if some of those weren't necessarily heat treating but some subtle oxidation or something over time that affects just the thin layer near the very edge so even if I'm lucky enough to find an old razor without any pitting or damage to hone through I might need to take off a bit more than it looks like.
I imagine similar things (steel hardness/quality, bevel angle) can also affect the overall edge retention so even with my same face and technique some of my razors with hard steel can probably go for 20 shaves (if I ever let them) while others would not be able to hold an edge past 10.
I mostly just rinse them out but now and then use something stronger (sal suds, roughly equivalent to a concentrated dish soap but I prefer the scent).
The fibres aren't breaking in a way I can visually see, I'm just speculating that my perception of synths getting scratchier over time is perhaps due to the very tip breaking off. I prefer smaller brushes, my 22mm Yaqi Tuxedo with a short loft was my first synth but at some point (3ish years?) became unpleasant so I upgraded to a 23mm Muhle STF which, after two years, is starting to feel a bit scratchier. I have a larger Yaqi Tuxedo that I use very rarely and it's noticeably softer so I was wondering if this is maybe just how synths are?
...or maybe I'm just imagining it on the STF, the larger brush is just a bit softer and I must have scrubbed the poor little Tuxedo to an early death by not being sufficiently gentle with it?
Does anyone find synthetic knots get worse over time? I've now had a couple go from super soft to quite soft but slightly scratchy like the very tips of the fibres break off leaving a subtly harsh contact surface. They still lather fine, just less pleasant to use.
This seems like a really nice size, good compromise between heft/lather handling and agility. Plus I like the jimping on it. Somehow I suspect you'll hang on to this one.
And ya, wow, did you stumble onto a hidden cache of underappreciated and underpriced blades or did you set out to expand your collection like this?