A Mach 3 High-Velocity Shave

If you have looked at my other blog you know that I have been on the road a lot. The TSA says safety razors are allowed as carry-on baggage. That, of course, should include double-edge and single-edge safety razors. And it does. In every airport except San Francisco it seems.

I have never been stopped for a DE at security in any airport except SFO. This week I accidentally carried two DE blades on the plane in my travel kit, and they didn't stop me at SFO. They didn't stop me in Philadelphia today either BTW.

Anyway, I got tired of being stopped, and switched back to a Mach 3 for my travel kit. I know a lot of people rave about how much better a sharp DE is than a Mach 3, but I can't say that I agree. Yesterday I loaded a new cartridge in my Mach 3, and it produced an easy, super smooth two-pass shave. As good or better than any two-pass DE shave I can produce. So, I have to give Mach 3 it's due.

Of course, the Mach 3 blades are still over priced. I use my DE at home for that reason. A DE is far better with a multi-day beard too. But if you have to travel out of SFO, they are a a very viable alternative.

Hey, if you read this far and are interested in one of my shaving brushes, I have a scoop for you. I plan to start making custom brushes again within the next few weeks. I don't have time for a lot of volume, but low-volume is better than no-volume. If you are on my mailing list, I will let you know when I get started again. It won't be long though... Maybe even this weekend.

I'm blogging...

Just not here.

The most I have been able to do with shaving these days has been to get my daily shave in. They have been good, but I can't get too excited about writing about it.

I have been blogging though. I have been trying to get my day-to-day photos uploaded regularly. If you are interested, you can check it out here: http://mymountaintrail.blogspot.com/. Hope to see you there.

If you are wondering about my brush-making, I have not abandoned the craft. I have just been so busy with life and work, that I haven't had much time in the shop. And the time I have spent there has been devoted to meeting orders from earlier this year.

I finally got some time working the lathe to make some candlestick holders for our upcoming wedding. Keeping things in perspective here, that is clearly the right choice at the moment.

I have the materials to make HUNDREDS of brushes... I will be back one of these days. :-)

Long time no blog...

Hey, where has the time gone? It's been one month since I blogged last.

I have an excuse: I have been extremely busy. Busy with work (two weeks of travel out of the last four), busy with family obligations, and busy with brushes. I even stopped taking new brush orders!

The real problem was the travel though. I'm behind on everything except my job now. Sometimes that's the way it goes. Oh yeah, that also means I can still pay the rent and eat...

I have managed to finish a few brushes this week. The brush above is a slightly more slender version of Amyn's tulip. It is a 25mm brush in Macassar Ebony. The brush to the right is another variation of that design. This one is a 28mm in Macassar Ebony. It's an interesting variation, though it was a bit more difficult to finish for some reason.

Speaking of Macassar Ebony, I can't seem to find it anywhere anymore. Apparently the importers are having trouble getting it now. So, those of you with Macassar Ebony brushes, you may end up with a true rarity going forward. Let's hope not, but it could be.

I have an update on the Personna blade issue I blogged on last month. This week I decided to go back to my DE. When I removed the old Personna blade, two blades popped out! Apparently they were stuck together in the package when I changed the blade last time. I never exected that to happen, so I didn't look at the blade very hard. Well, two blades are obviously a lot worse than one, so it's no surprise that I was hating my shave! Now that I'm back to using one, sharp blade, life is good again!

c u l8r!

Lather up!

It's been hot here the last couple of days. For us, in Northern California, it's been real hot. We get about 10 hot days a year here. By our standard that means more than 80 degrees. They usually happen in the Spring and Fall, with about 2 days somewhere in July that are 100+ degrees. Every time we get one of those days we suffer. No A/C. No acclimation. No way we would want to live anywhere else!

Today I used a new brush. It's a pretty basic tulip style turning as you can see in the picture. I had it set on firm for soap. It's a very cool brush, and you can expect to hear more about it in the future.


My soap is in the Old Spice mug I commented on a few posts ago, with a 3" inside diameter. The brush handle is pretty large at the top at about 38mm. I mention this because I have a customer, Shaun, who noted that a large handle neck can be restrictive in a mug or bowl when lathering. I had never really thought about it, but he is right! This new brush lathers fine, but it's going to get some mileage on the sides of my mug!

Today is changeover day for my blade. I don't know what will come out of the cabinet tomorrow, but it better be sharp!

I finished a bunch more brushes in the last few days. They are at the bottom of the pile (so dig deep) in my flickr brush set, here, if you are interested. Okay, here's another pic of a 25mm spalted maple brush to whet your appetite...




Good night for now!

Eye Candy

A quick post this morning to show you a bit of eye candy. I made this 28mm brush for a customer, but he decided he wanted a different look in the wood. This wood is maple burl. Looks good to me! I guess I'll just have to sell it off of my website.

Hey, it's cool to see that LeisureGuy dropped by and commented on the Gem g-bar. LeisureGuy, aka Michael Ham, is a prolific and very interesting blogger on shaving topics. He blogs on many other topics too. Being a shaving connoisseur, he even wrote a book about shaving! I haven't read it, but I read much of what must be in this book on his blog entries about wet shaving basics. I'm sure it's a very good read. If you are trying to get wet shaving figured out, this would be a great place to start - so go buy it.
Maybe I'll post more later, but I need to get out to the shop...

Gems and Wildflowers

I've been wanting to blog for days, but have been very busy. Work, play, work, play... No chance to slot a blog in there. My brush backlog is getting so long I'm going to have to take a couple of days off to start working it down. Fortunately, I have the time at the moment to do that.


A couple of posts ago I said that I had a rough shave with my red IP. Well, it smoothed out a little, but not as much as I would have liked. Thinking about alternatives, I decided to break out my freebie Gem G-bar. I bought it as part of an ebay auction for an Old Spice mug like my old navy-days mug. I got the mug and a few razors for $9 or so. I sold the other razors for $10.50 and walked away with my mug and this Gem.

I liked the looks of it, and it didn't seem to be very valuable on ebay. After a little looking around, I found that many people don't like the Gems but a few do. I found that it works great with the right technique, and really hacks you for a pretty bad shave with anything else. Fortunately, the right technique is a matter of keeping the razor almost flat on your face. If you do that, it's as easy as any mindless single edge (except of course the straight kind) out there.


So anyway, I've been using the Gem of late with my Ted Pella brick of PTFE blades, and life is good again. I will go back to the red IPs but I needed some refresher time with the ol' g-bar.



One of the play things I've been up to was a triathlon training weekend at Lake San Antonio near Lockwood, CA. We had time for some family photography, and now you get to enjoy it. The triathlon my fiance, Lori, is training for is called "Wildflower". You can see why in the pic. We had a great time, and it was a beautiful weekend. c u later!

The picture says it all. Yet it also raises a bunch of questions.

First of all, I've been busy. You don't create a beauty like the one in the back of my truck without some effort. This project has been a bit of an undercover operation for the last few months. One of the local high-tech-struck-it-rich wet shavers around here wanted a brush like no other. Guys like that go big, and I wasn't going to let him down. This beautiful cocobolo silvertip badger brush is the result.

So that's the answer, what about the questions you ask?
Well, first of all, that looks like quite a load for a '69 Ford pickup. Are you sure it can handle it? It turns out my good ol' F100 comes with factory installed heavy duty springs in back, so the weight was manageable. I just had to tie the load down to be sure it didn't sway too much on the winding trip down the mountain.

Second, where do you get badgers for a brush like that? Most people don't realize that the planet Chiena has supersized resort badgers available for your average 1000 lb., medium firm, 90cm silvertip badger brush. The brush-commissioner ordered the brush for me on his interplanet network and the Space Shuttle (I'm not kidding) picked it up last time they were at the space station --that's why they had such a long mission last trip.

What about the cocobolo tree? They don't come that large! Oh, come on, you know those high tech wizards get whatever they want. He said "make it happen", and the forest complied. Simple.

And finally, how did you get it loaded and unloaded in that very cool truck? I've been spending lots of time with my personal trainer. Fortunately, she is my fiance, so I could afford it. Note though, I am obligated to fix dinner on command until 2020. Works for me. I'd have done that for her anyway!!!

So don't get too jealous of the haves here. I have no idea how to lather this thing up. I'm thinking scuba gear may be required to survive the process. Having that kind of money is more trouble than I would know how to handle. My 28mm works just fine for me!

I hope your April has started as well as mine! ;-)

More very impressive pics tomorrow...

Amyn, you da man!

You would not believe how many positive comments I have gotten on this brush! For the record, Amyn, the commissioner of this brush, designed it. He sent me a picture of the Simpsons Tulip with his changes, I drew it up on Autosketch and sent him two drawings to evaluate. He told me which one fit his vision, and I made the brush. I probably deviated a little from the drawing since I turn by eye most of the time, but the inspiration belongs to Amyn.

So, let me be the first to say to Amyn: "You da MAN!" Very nice work. I hope the brush serves you well. BTW, Amyn has posted a review of the brush here and here. Thanks Amyn, I really appreciate that.

Sometimes it's just "same ol' same ol'"

The pic shows the view from up here on Mt. Tamalpais. My shop is atually on the dark ridge just on the left edge where the tree is. Life is good!

So how was your shave today? I had a new, red, IP in my Merkur and it was no cakewalk let me tell you. I had some pulling and scraping to contend with. I'll give it one more day, but if that blade doesn't shape up I'm going to ditch it. I guess if it is bad, I can allow for a few bad blades (at 10 cents/blade) at the moment.

Everything else about my shave was great by the way. I have been using this Truefitt and Hill 1805 shaving cream. The rest of the toolkit included my firm, 28mm brush, and coastal oak bowl. That brush is just sweet! And so is the T&H 1805. Very nice indeed!

Well, we have an update to the Rakowski case. 1Adam12 has experience with Rakowski brushes. Hmm, not good experience either. Check out his post at SRP.

Hey, this gets me off on a tangent. 1A12..., with a moniker like that, we know he's not a kid don't we? 1 Adam 12 was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. I guess that means I ain't no spring chicken either. In fact, I'm so old, I'm too grumpy to watch television anymore; so I got rid of it! It's the blogging life for me.

So anyway, 1A12 appears to have purchased an early Rakowski brush. $20 is a bargain for sure. Though, it appears as if his brush had problems with the finish and construction. 1A12 ended up re-gluing the knot into the handle and re-finishing the cracked wood finish. That is not good. What surprised me was he had no criticism for the badgers from the, as thebigspender suggested, generic Chinese badger ranch. In fact, he likes his brush now that he has it fixed up. Imagine how good it would be if those badgers had been in a branded resort before they became a shaving brush!

Ah shoot! Enough of the badgering again!

Hey, I've been working on some Stubby/Chubby look-a-likes. These particular handles are smaller handles for smaller knots. The knots are set deep to make them firm. They're kind of cute actually. I'll post the pics when they are available of course. I have to admit they are fun to to turn!

That's it for tonight. Tomorrow I will be in Toronto on bidness. At some point, we have to pay the bills! :-)

There's gonna be some changes around here...

Those of you wanting to comment but not having a Google account, sorry about the commenting restrictions. I have corrected that. Anyone can comment, and it will be visible immediately. Have fun!

More later...

Happy Easter!

Good evening. No real blogging tonight. It was a full day of Easter here on the mountain. We started at 5:30 a.m. when about a thousand (only guessing) motorcycles rode by the house. The first wave took over 10 minutes to pass, the next few waves about 5 minutes each, and then smaller groups for the next hour. Those sunrise services do have a price. Unfortunately we had to chip in!

Okay, I finished this brush today. It's a medium firm, 28mm thuya burl (again). It sure is nice isn't it?! Hey, what have you been up to? You're seeing triples! Oh wait, that's just the same brush from three different angles.

That's it for tonight. See you tomorrow I hope!

Shaving Brushes and the Scientific Method

He’s at it again! thebigspender has weighed in with another zinger, this time at The Straight Razor Place. The subject: Custom brush maker Tom Rakowski. At least thebigspender admitted up front that he didn’t know what he was talking about… You can look here to see what I think of thebigspender's poor logic. He is consistent.

I’ve never seen one of Tom’s brushes in person either. I have seen his photos, and he does a very nice job turning his handles. Even without holding one of Tom’s brushes though, I can see a potential problem. And you will see it too when you finish this post.

Tonight, I offer you some direct knot size and characteristics comparisons. This is your chance to look at real photos and be your own knot scientist.

First, lets talk about knot size. Most knots are classified by their diameter. I use 22mm, 25mm, and 28mm silvertip badger knots. This allows me to make a range of brushes from small through pretty large. I have made some 30mm brushes -- those guys were giants!

The following picture shows you a comparison of the three knot sizes I use. All three knots are set in the board with a depth that will give them what I call a medium feel. (Here’s what I mean by medium: They should work well for both creams and soaps. If you’re a dedicated soaper, go firmer, but if you use both and only want one brush, medium is the ticket.)



So, you can see that by increasing the diameter, the knots (and brushes) get much larger. Math alert. This is because the number of bristles increases with the square of the knot diameter. For equally dense knots, a 25mm brush is 29% larger than a 22mm knot. A 28mm knot is 62% larger than a 22mm knot and 25% larger than a 25mm brush. In addition to these differences, the lofts vary. For equal lofts, larger diameter knots are firmer. So for the same feel, a larger diameter knot can support a longer loft.

This also means that we can change the firmness of a brush by changing the loft. A shorter loft on equally dense knots results in a firmer brush. There is some physics behind this, but I won't bore you with that. The empirical evidence is there. This next picture below shows three different lofts for a 25mm knot.

Quite a difference isn’t it? My experience is that many people seem to prefer a medium to firm knot. Even a densely packed knot is going to be floppy if the loft is too long.

Now back to Tom Rakowski’s brushes. Beautiful turnings. Based on his photos, his bristle loft also appears to be a pretty high loft. So if there is a potential problem here, it is that the knots are not set to create the feel that (in my experience) many people seem to prefer.

Finally, if you are a flexible brush person, then a Rakowski brush will probably work pretty well. If you ask Tom to set your knot to a specific loft, you are likely to be satisfied too. After all, that is the point of a custom brush – get it the way you want it.

The brush and the beard.

One of my blog heroes, strobist, says that this is the blogging hour. Of course he is three hours ahead of me, but you have to put some faith in your heroes. Oh, BTW, that means Mr. Hobby's blogging hour is 3:30 a.m.! I would be thinking about shaving if I was up at that hour!

So, the beard...I'm going to grow it back. I just like it. It makes me look thin!

For tonight, just a quick pic. I offer this brush that I finished today shown at left. This was another commissioned brush. It was a modified design of one of the BIG BOYS (okay that's a bit sexist, let's say BIG PEOPLES) designs. This customer knows his brushes, and he creates designs that work don't you think? The wood is thuya burl again. Schweet!!

Alright, that was the brush.

Tomorrow (or is it today?) let's talk about brush loft and firmness... One of my other customers had a great idea, and I'm going to try to act on it to actually create some useful information. That would be very cool! :-)

Blades, Blades, and More Blades

Okay, so I use the red Personna blades, often referred to as Israeli Personna or IP blades. There was extensive discussion about them on B&B back around the time I bought them. I bought them on ebay for about $10 for a hundred. I just did a quick search for them and they don't seem to be available there anymore. I wonder what that means. I suppose I will have to do a little more research.

Anyway, before I bought this huge brick of blades, I bought one of the forum sampler packs. It included Feather, Derby, Merkur, Gillette, blue and read IPs. I didn't like the Feathers -- maybe they were too sharp, because they hacked me pretty bad. The Gillettes and IPs seemed pretty similar to me. The Derbys were a step down. The Merkurs were a step down from the Derbys and the Feathers were the worst for me.

Given that the IPs seemed to work okay for me, I made the $10 commitment for the big brick. Now I have a two-year supply, and my razor is always sharp. All for about the cost of a couple of Mach 3 blades!

I usually just change my blade every Sunday without counting the shaves. That way I start the week with a fresh blade. Maybe with the increased real estate without my beard I will need to change blades more often. I guess we'll see soon!

Blades and Badgers

This is my second day without my beard. Hey, that's a lot of work shaving my whole face. I might have to let the beard grow back in. My fiance gives the thumbs up for that, so I may give in. But maybe not. I am my own man! (Yeah, right!)

So I said I would write about blades today, but before I do I want to talk about the Badger and Blade website and forums. For starters, B&B and other shaving websites can be a great source of information for the new wetshaver. I really appreciate the resources they provide, and I will highlight some of the things I like most some other day. I say that because what I'm going to say next is going to sound a bit negative: Don't believe everything you read. It seems to be a common practice in the B&B forums to pan certain types of products with no real knowledge.

Of interest to me tonight is the brush forum thread in this post. This is a post about a brush that I made as a custom brush maker. The original poster was enthusiastic because he has the awesome brush I posted about a few days ago. Others were congratulatory. And then we get the typical B&B know-it-all-party-pooper comment from thebigspender:

We've had these discussions here before and I don't want to knock anyone's custom brushes I have a few myself but what I and others here have found is that though these brushes are all gorgeous looking and would make a stunning display piece when compared to a quality brush from one of the well known makers they don't measure up in the performance department. I know mine are expertly crafted with a very dense badger knot of silvertip much larger than my Rooney or Simpson but the performance still doesn't match. Probably because the custom makers buy very generic ready made badger pucks.

Hmm, interesting. So thebigspender has apparently not used one of my brushes, or for that matter, the poster's brush, but he has an opinion about it's quality anyway. Okay, he says, it's stunning, but it's not a quality brush because it doesn't have a brand name on it. His custom brushes are expertly crafted, and large, but don't measure up to his Rooney or Simpson. I'm not sure what this means -- they are larger, but they don't measure up? They don't lather? They are scratchy? They are flexible? They are too stiff? What doesn't measure up?

Oh, I see now. The badgers came from a generic badger ranch in China instead of the designer resort badger ranch in China. That must be it.

The B&B logic goes something like this for me. I started out using a shaving brush as a 22 year-old Ensign on a nuclear powered submarine. We weren't allowed to have canned shaving cream on a sub (the propellant isn't recommended for breathing for long periods of time in a 285' sealed pipe) so we used soap and shaving brushes. I used one of the name brand production brushes -- an Old Spice boar hair brush. Big name, big manufacturer, we all had them because that is what the Navy Exchange stocked. I can tell you that the shaving brushes I make are way better than that old brush, and clearly they are better than all those other big manufacturers' brushes too.

Even in the middle of this rant I have to laugh at that last statement. Hey, that old boar hair brush was never a picnic. It did the job, but not without some daily abraiding of my tender 22 year-old face. I can't possibly paint all production brushes with the same brush as that boar hair nightmare. And you shouldn't make the same mistake with custom made wood-handled brushes.

Finally, some people actually like the feel of a boar hair brush. They might even prefer it over a Rooney or Shavemac, or a Mt. Tamalpais brush. Cool. If we all had the same brush, I'd be swamped! Awe, just kidding -- we wouldn't have our own brush at all. We would all have a barber shaving us of course.

Okay, enough of the badgering. Here's my blades:

You can see I use the red Personna blades. I'm a bit worn out after my rant, so I'll have to defer the blades topic to tomorrow. Maybe I'll even get to it...

A new look.

Yesterday I shaved off my beard. I’ve had one of those goatee style beards going for the last 14 months or so. I have to admit that I liked it quite a bit, but this weekend it became a problem.

On Saturday I came down with what I thought was a cold. I was sneezing, blowing, tearing, and had a headache. No sore throat or coughing though. I thought it was a cold anyway.

On Sunday my fiancé and I went for a bike ride to the top of Mount Tam, and when we got to the top I was cured! I went on the ride because I needed to get out after two days holed up in the house. If I had known I was going to be cured, I would have gone much sooner.

Well, to make a too long story short, it seems I have a new allergy. I’ve never had one before, but now I seem to have one.

And what that does have to do with a beard? Well, let me tell you, blowing and sneezing into a beard is just not cool. It’s okay to save a bit of dinner in your beard for later, but saving… well you get the picture. So now I’m clean shaven.

That means that I had a “new” shaving experience the last few days. One thing that worked was a nice sharp blade in my Merkur Futur shown below.



In fact, it worked so well that I didn’t need to trim my beard before cutting. That’s the beauty of a sharp double edge razor. The sharp part speaks for itself, but the nice part about a DE is that it doesn’t clog nearly as much as a more “modern” multi-blade razor.

All that with a 10 cent blade too. Next post… a few comments on the actual blade I used

Now that's a shaving brush!

This will be a quick one tonight. I turned this brush handle on my lathe this week and finished it today. It's a 28mm knot with a 58mm loft --this should be perfect for using a soap puck, but will also work well with cream. The wood is thuya burl. I have to admit that it turned out so nice that I almost told Alex, the customer, that I had slipped and gouged his brush. That way, it would be ALL MINE! Oh well, that's not me. If I really want one, I'll have to make it for myself.

I can take credit for turning the handle, but not for the quality of wood. Man (woman), that is very fine grain. One of the things I like to see is variety in the grain, and this blank has it.

Anyway, grab a paper towel and then drool at will. :-) !!!

Let the Blogging Begin!

What is this blog about? The title says it all for now. Starting out I will post about my experiences with wet shaving and try to link in to wet shaving resources on the internet.

For starters, here's a picture of my daily lathering kit:




Life is good!

I made the brush and bowl on my lathe in my workshop. The bowl is made out of some awesome coastal oak that I picked up from a down tree near my home. The brush is figured walnut with a 28mm silvertip badger hair knot. The knot is a high density knot with a 58mm loft. It's a great soap brush, but it also works pretty well with creams.

The lather above was generated in about 20 seconds from Truefitt and Hill 1805 shaving cream. Very nice.