Best advice & tips to 'adjustables' neophytes

Urban Hermit

Urban Hermit

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Sheffield, UK
Up until about a week or so ago, I can't remember having a shave with an adjustable. Now I have an F4 'fatboy' and if I'm lucky I might find an H3 Slim out there that isn't going for silly money. The adjustable razor is a different sort of a beast alright. I'm not sure what the best 'action plan' is for the learning curve for it; I'm likely not the only one wondering how to get the best out of one of these either ... Do you find it best to knock it up a knotch every x number of shaves? Leave it on one setting per session? Ramp it up high for the first pass, and drop it back down for thall subsequent ones - or the total reverse?

Please, feel free to share what works/worked best for you, as well as enlightening us about the pitfalls and bad practices you might have, or have had to un-learn. Thanks in advance & cheers!
 
I started the other way round, i.e. from an adjustable. It was a Futur.

To make things worse, I had no real clue about wet shaving and about using an adjustable, so I thought the scale 1-6 on the Futur is something very simple that could be exploited with a great degree of freedom (that means occasional shaves with Gillette canned shaving gel, Merkur blade and the Futur @ 6 :shock: ).

It took me few months while into wet shaving to use a non-adjustable DE razor and enjoy its advantages.

I remember antdad one day here in TSR (few months ago) when he mentioned something like "...you may think using an adjustable gives you more freedom and flexibility but this is not necessarily so..." - how right he was. This sums it up for me.

Personally now I do not miss using an adjustable very much, though I do so infrequently. I wouldn't imagine most users changing settings every now and then. You could have a 'mild' setting of your choice and an 'aggressive' one, but that's about it more or less. Of course different people have different preferences.
 
I asked this question a while back before embarking with an Adj. Slim. In the end i found that '4' gave me a reasonable enough shave, with no drama's, so there it stayed.

i suppose a better way to think about them, would be to regard them as 'customisable's', as this is all you (or at least i was) are looking at doing - is tweaking a razor to suit your style rather than having to change your style. imho :|
 
The only adjustable DE razor that I have used is Merkur Futur. It has a bit of a fearsome reputation, so I started shaving with it on the lowest setting, shaved like that for a couple of days and then started to wind it up a half notch until I reached a point where comfort was being compromised. I then wound it back half a notch.

With the Futur, the settings are also influenced by what blades are being used. You can get away with the higher settings for the milder blades, but if you're wandering into Feather/Iridium/7O'Clock Yellow land, then you might want to wind things back a bit.

Once I find the sweet spot for a certain blade, I tend to leave it set to that for the whole shave.

Ian
 
I wish I had said that...whoever it was he was right.

I would...

just find one setting/blade combo that gives you a satisfactory 2 or 3 pass shave and treat it as an ordinary razor, try and resist changing settings between passes for now.

Once you have established what setting works and you want to try something closer. I would use that setting as a datum and dial around it. So if it happens to be (5) try a two pass shave with settings on (4) and (6).
 
For me, MoodyM & AntD have it about right U/Hermit. My Progress pretty much lived at around 2.5 - 3 with Feather blades. I started off at no 1, least aggresive, then slowly moved on up. I took Mick's view that all I was doing was just tweaking an already nice razor to the very best personal setting for me. Apart from that I just shave with it as I do with any other DE.

"To be is to do".

JohnnyO. :shave
 
I bought a Slim a few months into my DE shaving experience and have been using it for the last couple of months. In hindsight, it probably hasn't been the best razor to learn with as I have a tendency to play about with things and that's probably been to the detriment of technique. I should probably put it to the side for a while or leave it on one setting. I've a flair tip superspeed that I bought recently, so I may try and stick with that for a while. Or a Tech. Or a Merkur HD. Or a Aristocrat #15.

You can probably see why I'm still struggling to get BBS shaves.
 
Hey Urban Hermit,
I have both a fatboy and a slim adjustable. I got the slim first and having read up on it on the forums ,most people were advising to start on 3-4 and to dial up 1 after a sucessful irritation free shave and dial down once I hit irritation ,this seems logical and simple. I of course started my first shave on 4 but it did'nt seem to be working to well , so by the end of the first pass I had dialled it all the way up ( and did an xtg and atg pass ). I got a really good shave , but quite a bit of irritation , (and by quite a bit I mean a lot ), oh and I managed to cut myself a few times too . The alum sting that day was epic.
The next shave three days later I did the whole thing on 3 and it worked much better . I currently use it on 5.

I have'nt used the Fatboy above 5 , and have no intention to dial it all the way up. Though someday when I'm feeling adventurous ......

I see no reason why my experience should deter you from starting at the highest setting , after all "your mileage may vary" and a liberal application of alcolado should sort out any problems.


I enjoy using both razors , and use gillette super thins or iridium supers. I use alum ,cold water and aftershave ( I like good strong stuff like OS fresh lime) ,I only use after shave balm or moisturisers if I have irritation and that does'nt happen too often.

regards

Damian
 
With old Gillette adjustables remember to loosen-off the TTO knob before (re-)adjusting the setting on the numbered collar.

It avoids undue stress on the thingumy whatsit knurled flange.
 
Do any of us long term adjustable razor users change the setting much? It doesn't sound like it, and I know I certainly don't. Antdad's method of finding a suitable number then bracketing certainly sounds sensible; my method of winding it right up to 9, finding that I could get away with it and leaving it there is anything but.
 
Rev-O said:
With old Gillette adjustables remember to loosen-off the TTO knob before (re-)adjusting the setting on the numbered collar.

It avoids undue stress on the thingumy whatsit knurled flange.
Click to expand...

Thanks rev. I didn't know about that bit. I mean I think it's fairly safe to say that among the majority of wet shavers, few would ever admit that they'd like undue stress on their knurled flange's thingumy whatsis - not even with whipped cream or custard.

... and definitely not with crushed nuts!

¬.¬
 
Have been giving some thought to this myself lately.

Having started with the EJ Chatsworth as my first real DE razor, all of my accumulated blade stash has been gauged on use with this razor.

Iridium Super
Yellow 7’s
Super Thins
Red IP’s

Since acquiring a Futur and using these blades, I have, as mentioned in previous posts had to find the required setting through trial and error to get the best from each blade. This does lead to a slightly closer shave without being too aggressive with regards to a couple of these blades, but I’m wondering if getting the Futur was really necessary. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy using it and will rotate its use, but the Chatsworth allowed a good shave with all of these blades without the necessity to adjust the settings blades.

Don’t now if that makes sense, in fact I was starting to confuse myself, but it’s along those lines anyway... :?
 
SirPrize said:
moodymick said:
Rev-O said:
It avoids undue stress on the thingumy whatsit knurled flange.
Click to expand...

Flange, probably my favourite word in the English Language, it just trips off the tongue Flange!!!
:D
Click to expand...
I prefer knurl, as in "Oi loves a good knurl, oi does! (aaargh)"
Click to expand...

Just come to this thread for knowledge but stung by the above, I can only say - spigot
 
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