SOTD 1/1/2018!!
Hi Guys and Gals – I hope that everyone has a prosperous and happy 2019 and a lot of great shaves too. I had my second shave on the Augustini Kamisori and I wanted to show some more photos and my observations about this razor.
First a health warning:
The Kamisori is a superb blade to master. It is at the pinnacle of Japanese razors and it takes some skill to use. It is NOT for the novice wet shaver and nor is it for the novice straight razor shaver. Wait until you are comfortable with a sharp blade and can almost shave blindfold before you try a Kamisori!!
However, if you do master a Kamisori it will give a superb and comfortable shave – you will be well rewarded. The kami I am using is a blade I bought from Augustini razors in Melbourne Australia. It has a traditional left handed asymmetrical grind as you will see from the photos below. It is beautiful in every way – a true masterpiece of the art.
IF you want one like the one I am using then contact Augustini through Instagram
HERE.
The line up:
Lets first look at what makes a Kamisori – traditionally the Kamisori is made of a soft iron ‘handle' with a hard steel cutting edge with either three layers or 2 layers (san-mai or ni-mai) this was done in order to keep the price down and is in line with how swords are made – soft body/hard edge. In this case the complete kami is made up of the same hard steel. A Kamisori is ground to be ‘handed' either left or right handed although some modern Kamisoris do have a ‘western grind' more like a traditional straight razor. Kamisoris were originally meant truly ‘for barber use' so I am guessing that the handedness was for the barbers preference not the shavers. I use my Kami in both hands – (lets wait for the thunderbolts from the traditionalists….). The Kamisori I show here is left handed grind. The side with more griding is called the ‘Ura' and the flatter side is called the ‘Omote'. The makers mark would usually be found on the Ura on a Japanese razor however Augustini has not marked the blade – I think he should as it is a superb razor and something to be proud of –
mark it Luke!!
So here are my observation on what was a superb shave:-
The heel of the razor – the point at the front – is superb and slightly angled and therefore muted – it will not dig into my face flesh if I lose concentration.
The toe is at almost 90º and is super sharp – beware of this digging in – you CANNOT use the Kamisori like a pencil. The blade needs to be parallel to the face at all times.
The handle us super shiny, just the right weight ann very highly polished – dry hands or alum essential
The shave was superb with even the ATG pass a delight. A tip for a Kamisori shave is to use a very slick soap likw the one I used or something like
TOBS Avocado – something that leaves a residual slickness on the face after the pass – why? because the angle at which you shave with the kamisori is very shallow and the Omote will slide against the skin – if there is no residual slickness then it can drag and skip a little. nothing to worry about just one thing to watch out for.
If you are a serious straight razor user then mastering the Kamisori should be on your ‘to do' list and you would be hard pressed to find a finer example than this
Augustini Kamisori.