" You should have" listened to BillySorry to dig up an old thread...
I was fortunate to win a USA 1912 in a recent PIF and shaved with it today with a shim and WOW, smooth as anything, couldn't be bothered making a shim before but I wish I had. Like others have said I often found the 1912 (my usual UK one) and to a lesser extent the 1914 rough for the first shave or two but the shimmed blade was immense! Look forward to trying it with my UK model now - I'd largely given up on it as I was fed up with the roughness.
Glad you found a Marked Difference..Quite a few folks have got the benefit from the Shim..The Angle is Sorta more Flatter against the face with the Shim ..Nice One..Sorry to dig up an old thread...
I was fortunate to win a USA 1912 in a recent PIF and shaved with it today with a shim and WOW, smooth as anything, couldn't be bothered making a shim before but I wish I had. Like others have said I often found the 1912 (my usual UK one) and to a lesser extent the 1914 rough for the first shave or two but the shimmed blade was immense! Look forward to trying it with my UK model now - I'd largely given up on it as I was fed up with the roughness.
Everything that you just there just about sums it up I reckon..That Shim although thin changes the geometry of the razor quite remarkably..I discovered this when using an Original Stropping Blade & when I acquired a Gem G Bar that was specifically designed to take a Current Gem Blade..I have been sceptical about how such a thin shim (half a Gem spine) could really alter the angle of the blade in the razor that much to make a difference. Yesterday I put it to the test again (first time I tried a while back I couldn't detect much difference).
I used an Ever Ready 1914 with a half spine Gem shim and the shave was very smooth. In fact I didn't think the shave was getting very close because of the lack of the expected audible feedback. The result though was a very close and smooth shave.
Today, for comparison, I used the same razor/blade combination without the shim just to see how I normally experience the 1914. Truth was today's shave felt more scratchy and more audible feedback which makes me think the blade was actually scraping more than with yesterday's shim. The result wasn't as close as yesterday either.
I think @Fergiebilly's description "The Angle is Sorta more Flatter against the face with the Shim" sums it up well and convinced me to try it out for myself.
For Folks that are not familiar with Shimming a Gem blade here is the thread again that Paul kindly put together for me sometime Ago..The Gem G Bar Junior actually takes a Complete Gem Spine..
Billy, you know him as 'Fergiebilly', has made some precise measurements of modern GEM/Personna blades versus the old GEM, Ever Ready and Star blades from around the 1910s and found that the old blades, Damaskeenes, Cru-Steel and the like, had a thicker spine and so, the dynamics of the razor were actually quite different to the shaves we experience today with modern GEM/Personna blades.
To remedy, he found that half of a modern GEM/Personna spine slipped underneath was just right.
Here's how ...
First, de-spine an old blade by squeezing at each end of the spine and wiggling it free:
Now, using flat blade screw drivers and a good hard edge, like a metal ruler, open up the spine ...
... close it up and repeat a few times until it snaps:
Take your razor, say a 1912, and load in the half spine and the blade on top:
Voila! Shimmed!
You can do the same with, say a GEM Junior Bar, loading in the blade and then slipping the shim under:
Voila! Shimmed!
... that's how
Naturally, once you've removed a spine from a GEM you can easily slip it onto the back of a FEATHER blade if that's something you'd want to do ..
Billy
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