- Joined
- Monday February 10, 2014
- Location
- Merseyside
I had a Prima come through the post today and so today's SOTD was a bit of a no-brainer.
First up though is a quick look at the razor in question....
The coloured rectangles just make the explanation a bit more simple!
It's a SE razor which, looking at the fittings on the baseplate, takes a proprietary blade with maybe 3 holes? I'm guessing this though from when I tried to fit a GEM Personna - perhaps a generic SE blade from the era would slot in there just fine.
The blade would be popped in where the centre hole would go over the catch (Green) and would be lined up to the comb using a couple more holes over the circular bumps (Light Blue) maybe? Once closed you push the end of the handle in. The catch, which already goes through the blade, then goes through the hole in the lid. You then twist the handle to rotate the catch 90 degrees where it clamps down to hold everything in place (Red).
I tried putting a Personna GEM in there but the centre hole was too small to feed the catch through. An injector blade can be seated in there but has to be lined up manually and is only held in place with the pressure between the lid and base. In the end I put a DE in which with some jigging slotted over the catch and when the lid was shut down the pressure just punctured the needed hole into the blades centre. The blade was held secure and the cutting edge lined up straight with the comb.
Just one little thing stood out.....
The other side of the DE blade does protrude ever so slightly from the back of what is a SE razor! Given the curvature of the head of the razor however this is pointed well away from the face and so long as remember it's there then it doesn't cause any problems during the shave. Just take care handling the razor!
The actual shave was very good. With the curve in the head and baseplate the cutting angle was fairly easy to drop into and maintain - not too dissimilar to a slant. It's a very efficient angle so one pass and a bit of touching up gave me a very smooth result.
Care is required as you are using a modern DE blade in a vintage open comb razor which was designed to take a vintage SE blade. A lack of familiarity did lead to a couple of very small weepers around the jaw and neck when I got a bit too confident but nothing that a cold water splash didn't take care of.
The razor felt a bit light for my liking but in the end it seemed to make no difference to the shave so I can't really be critical of that. I prefer heavier razors but this was fine in practice.
An interesting little razor and thankfully not one destined for the paperweight shelf!
First up though is a quick look at the razor in question....
The coloured rectangles just make the explanation a bit more simple!
It's a SE razor which, looking at the fittings on the baseplate, takes a proprietary blade with maybe 3 holes? I'm guessing this though from when I tried to fit a GEM Personna - perhaps a generic SE blade from the era would slot in there just fine.
The blade would be popped in where the centre hole would go over the catch (Green) and would be lined up to the comb using a couple more holes over the circular bumps (Light Blue) maybe? Once closed you push the end of the handle in. The catch, which already goes through the blade, then goes through the hole in the lid. You then twist the handle to rotate the catch 90 degrees where it clamps down to hold everything in place (Red).
I tried putting a Personna GEM in there but the centre hole was too small to feed the catch through. An injector blade can be seated in there but has to be lined up manually and is only held in place with the pressure between the lid and base. In the end I put a DE in which with some jigging slotted over the catch and when the lid was shut down the pressure just punctured the needed hole into the blades centre. The blade was held secure and the cutting edge lined up straight with the comb.
Just one little thing stood out.....
The other side of the DE blade does protrude ever so slightly from the back of what is a SE razor! Given the curvature of the head of the razor however this is pointed well away from the face and so long as remember it's there then it doesn't cause any problems during the shave. Just take care handling the razor!
The actual shave was very good. With the curve in the head and baseplate the cutting angle was fairly easy to drop into and maintain - not too dissimilar to a slant. It's a very efficient angle so one pass and a bit of touching up gave me a very smooth result.
Care is required as you are using a modern DE blade in a vintage open comb razor which was designed to take a vintage SE blade. A lack of familiarity did lead to a couple of very small weepers around the jaw and neck when I got a bit too confident but nothing that a cold water splash didn't take care of.
The razor felt a bit light for my liking but in the end it seemed to make no difference to the shave so I can't really be critical of that. I prefer heavier razors but this was fine in practice.
An interesting little razor and thankfully not one destined for the paperweight shelf!
