Is this common or am I doing something wrong....

If you are cutting yourself after three years of wetshaving then it ain't the blade. Cuts & irritation (barring allergic reaction to a soap) are always the shaver's fault. Again, it's either faulty prep, bad technique or a razor more aggressive than your needs warrant. One, or a combo, of those three. Don't look for other solutions as there are none and you'll be "wandering in the desert" another three years. There is no shame in admitting that you've been doing something incorrectly.
It's the blade as it only happens occasionally and is not a regular occurrence
 
Yes, it’s probably a duff blade, Astra I used them didn’t like them moved on to a different blade, for me Gillette silver blue gives the best results, for what it’s worth.
 
It causes the steel to deteriorate. Razor blades are normally made from low grade stainless steel which is more prone to this
The cutting edges are coated, they aren't exposed to the atmosphere. However, I keep almost everything shave related in a chest of drawers in the bedroom, just seems to be the smart thing to do. Nothing shave related is on the counter or any where visible in the bathroom.
 
In that lovely historical film, there was talk of how you should actually unwrap the blade. It's worth saying that some blades (how about Astras? I don't use 'em) have very slight or even no wax dots and so the blade can slop around inside the wrapper. That, and/or how the blade is unwrapped can affect the edge before it is loaded into the razor.

Another thought is ...

Blade alignment. Sometimes you get one side more presented than the other and so it feels rough and can catch you. Whenever I've encountered this (having used a literal metric tonne of razors), I just slacken off the blade, hold it by the end of the handle with the head dangling down ... give it a little jiggle and nip it back up. That usually gets the blade back into the middle, all present and correct.
 
The cutting edges are coated, they aren't exposed to the atmosphere. However, I keep almost everything shave related in a chest of drawers in the bedroom, just seems to be the smart thing to do. Nothing shave related is on the counter or any where visible in the bathroom.
Ditto.
The only thing I keep in the bathroom are the last used brush and soap, on the window ledge until they have dried off.
 
That was surprisingly informative for such a quaint old animated infomercial. Common sense *after* someone gives you that advice, but a lot of that wouldn't have occurred to me, such as taking extra care unwrapping the blade, how to check and correct alignment, and slackening off before rinsing and storage, omitting the drying wipe for fear of damaged edges. To mention nothing of looking at Willy under the microscope, while studiously avoiding mentioning babies' bottoms LOL!

I shall have a much better idea what to do when the Wilkie Classic shows up later this week.

Do people generally strop DE blades though? Thought that was just us SR types? Or is that a post-war austerity measure thing?
 
That was surprisingly informative for such a quaint old animated infomercial. Common sense *after* someone gives you that advice, but a lot of that wouldn't have occurred to me, such as taking extra care unwrapping the blade, how to check and correct alignment, and slackening off before rinsing and storage, omitting the drying wipe for fear of damaged edges. To mention nothing of looking at Willy under the microscope, while studiously avoiding mentioning babies' bottoms LOL!

I shall have a much better idea what to do when the Wilkie Classic shows up later this week.

Do people generally strop DE blades though? Thought that was just us SR types? Or is that a post-war austerity measure thing?
Don't strop a coated stainless blade you'll just damage the coating and kill the blade, and blades are cheap anyway.
 
That was surprisingly informative for such a quaint old animated infomercial. Common sense *after* someone gives you that advice, but a lot of that wouldn't have occurred to me, such as taking extra care unwrapping the blade, how to check and correct alignment, and slackening off before rinsing and storage, omitting the drying wipe for fear of damaged edges. To mention nothing of looking at Willy under the microscope, while studiously avoiding mentioning babies' bottoms LOL!

I shall have a much better idea what to do when the Wilkie Classic shows up later this week.

Do people generally strop DE blades though? Thought that was just us SR types? Or is that a post-war austerity measure thing?
Yea, the last thing you said! :)

Paul.
 
Well thank you all.
Lessons have been learned and now all my blades have been removed from the bathroom and are now also in an airtight plastic container.
I have also taken the opportunity to get myself a Merkur Futur so really will be starting with a clean slate.
 
Do people generally strop DE blades though? Thought that was just us SR types? Or is that a post-war austerity measure thing?
The stropping in the film was for the single edge type of blade, still in widespread use when the film was made. I couldn't quite catch the mechanism being used, but it was either a dedicated stropper like the ASR type, or a razor/stropper in one mechanism like the AutoStrop Valet razors. Likely a Valet, as the brand was mentioned right at the end.

... but no, don't strop a double edge blade for the same reasons as why you should not pat the blade between shaves and even be careful unwrapping the blade. You don't want to touch the edge. Many double edge blades are observed to sharpen up with the first use and this is likely attributable to a kind of "face stropping" where the edge is cleaned up by literally running it over your face with the first shave.

* That said ...

Before blades were coated (and before they were stainless steel), they were made of carbon steel which indeed straight edge were made from. These blades could be made to go on for longer by stropping. Even today, the few carbon steel DE blades on the market can respond to stropping, but you have to be very careful and very precise. It's not really worth doing. But, yes, the British love of using and using and using had fellows gently stroking their DE blades on the inside curve or a straight glass in the hope that they would have the blade play on for longer.

Here's a Lilicrap hone, designed for this specific purpose. It's even radioactive! Because ... that's a thing that works?

original.jpg
 
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Somewhat OT but as you mention radioactive, there was a time at the dawn of the atomic age, before people learned enough to rightly fear radioactivity, when it was greatly lauded, thought to be new, scientific and a sign of progress. People thought that radioactivity was good and would impart energy. There was even a device that would make your drinking water radioactive! Marketeers claimed it for all sorts of things to help sell stuff. People are very happy to be early adopters of new stuff but it's not always wise.

Here you go, I found a link
 
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