Shave of the day 17th October

Pre-shave: Dr Bronner’s Liquid Peppermint
Lather: Wet Shaving Products pre-production sample
Brush: Vie Long 13051M pure horse
Razor: Cadet TTO-11 Twist To Open / Open Comb with a fresh Feather Blade
Post-shave: Cool water rinse and Krampert’s Finest Bay Rum

Old, interesting razor

I have stumbled over the existence of a razor manufacturer I didn’t know about previously, along with a fairly unique razor. What caught my eye was the very interesting system for fitting the blade, which seems to be at least partly reliant on the springiness of the blade to ensure a solid lock. Markings shown in  the pictures I found online includes “DIXI” (probably the brand name) and “D.R.P.a” (a German abbreviation meaning “patent applied for”).

Apparently the brand and style of razor was around from at least 1910 – I stumbled over a reference to the 1910 model being of brass at a site that sells antiques and hand-crafted items.

One I spotted over at an action site the seller claimed that that this was a:

…antique (WWII) Germany (signed D.R.P.) military field gear safety razor brand “DIXI”.

Apparently, this later model was made between 1940 and 1944 if my google-fu isn’t failing, and most likely from either white metal or zinc.

A very similar razor was sold in Italy under the trade name Folgore, but I’ve not been able to find much about when or from what material that was manufactured. I did score a few photos though, and it looks like brass:

Imperial Japanese WW2 razors

Inspired by my recent acquisition of a WW1 Gillette Khaki, I have looked at what other military razors there are out there… these are supposedly Imperial Japanase razors from WW2, spotted on ebay.

This straight was described as “JAPANESE ARMY WW2  ISSUE STRAIGHT RAZOR”. Length 13 cm, it looks almost like a number of modern shavettes – from the photos it looks like a folded over piece of sheet metal gripping a SE-blade.With a metal press and some other tools one can probably start manufacturing similar bi-metal straights today with relative ease – whether there is market or not is a different question.

This was described by the seller as an “Original  and very scarce JAPANESE ARMY WW2 ISSUE FOLDING ALL STEEL RAZOR”. Length closed 8 cm  open 14 cm.  It was held in the open position by holding down the thumb catch . It did not lock nor have a spring.
Over on my favourite shave forum the points was raised that the grind would be wrong for a straight, and similar folding knifes are still popular in Japan as utility blades. Still, the seller listed this as a folding straight… caveat emptor I guess.

Wehrmacht razor

Inspired by my recent acquisition of a WW1 Gillette Khaki, I have looked at what other military razors there are out there… this is the standard issue German razor from WW2, spotted on ebay in it’s original packaging.

Overall, it looks rather similar to the Gillette Old and New… probably shaved much the same.

Razor blade sharperners

Halfway continuing from my musings on how old razor shaved when new – that is, with the original specification blade – I have spent a little time looking at how to keep a carbon blade sharp. It turns out that back in the day there was a LOT of ingenuity put into how to make your precious blades ‘fresh’, which is more critical with carbon steel blades due to the process of micro-pitting.

We may consider blades to be cheap today, but they cost comparatively more back in the old days

While I don’t usually take claims made in advertisements at face value, two months is a lot longer than the one week I use a blade before throwing it out… but then, part of the reason I throw them out is that I like to change things up. If you’re into traditional wetshaving to save money on the other hand, a blade sharpener makes a bit more sense – save money where you can.

There were quite a few different models too, working on several different principles:

Place blade on eccentric mount, close lid, pull string – the edges will move in a circular motion over the hones.
These two seems to work on the principle of placing the blade in the middle, and turning the handle will grind the hones across the edges. The top one  flips the blades over on the inside, the bottom one has four hones.
This moves a SE blade against a disc shaped grinding stone… which has a neat mechanism to flip the blade over.
I found a video of how to use the “thing on a string”… seems fairly simple, and if it works as advertised it should be very handy if the shavecopalypse ever comes around.
Also found a video demonstrating the “wind up” TwinPlex sharpener.
And last, a long video with the SE-blade sharpener.  I also found one of of a guy using it for a DE blade, but that one was in a language I don’t understand…
While I’m not sure how useful – or even usable – these devices would be with a modern stainless blade, it is fun to see the ingenuity of yesteryears.