WetShaving

GEM Days 3b/14: MM24 – Tue 19 Nov 2024

• Brush: Dogwood Handcrafts - Papa Eld with Declaration Grooming B3
• Razor: EldrormR Industries GEM Division - MM24
• Blade: Personna GEM PTFE
• Lather: Barrister and Mann – Frankly My Pear
• Post Shave: Pitralon – Swiss version

Second luxury shave with the sub (and personal) favourite, the MM24. The 1924 Shovelhead mod by u/EldrormrR. The legend has it that he didn't like the golf-pencil handle, but loved the head. So he got to tinkering and chopped off the head of an MMOC to harvest its great handle. The resulting Frankenrazor is a great shaver and a joy to use.

Frankly my Pear is a happy gourmand, great for a tipsy evening shave after I stuffed myself in a local fondue place 🫕

This was shave six of my run through all 14 generations of GEM-style razors:

1. ~~1906-1953: GEM 1912/Star Cadet/Junior/Damaskeene~~
   • FLS
   • SLS
2. ~~1914-1927: 1914~~
   • FLS
   • SLS
3. 1924-1933: 1924 Shovelhead ← We are here
   • FLS
4. 1930-1932: Micromatic Open Comb Gen 1 (Bumpless baseplate)
5. 1932-1941: Micromatic Open Comb Gen 2 (double-edge Micromatic GEM blades)
6. 1940-1943: Micromatic Clog-Pruf
7. 1945-1946: Micromatic Clog-Pruf Peerless
8. 1947-1950: Micromatic Flying Wing/Bullet Tip, with guiding eye until 1948, with plastic knob in the last year
9. 1949-1953: GEM Jewel/Streamline/Ambassador (The beginning of the end IMHO)
10. 1950: New GEM Feather Weight, renamed to "Slim-V Flat Top" in 1953, British version sold as "Natural Angle" by Ever-Ready
11. 1955-1958: GEM V-Slim "Heavy Flat Top" (G-Bar, shiny chrome), New V Natural Angle Heavy Flat Top (E-Bar, less shiny nickel)
12. 1958-1965: Push Button
13. 1965-1973: Contour
14. 1973-1979: Countour II (The last GEM razor)

19.11.2024 - Travel Speick shave

• Brush: Omega Roma Colosseo 31 mm
• Razor: Feather Popular TTO; Headblade S2 Lunar Eclipse
• Blade: Rapira Platinum Lux (FP); Headblade HB 2 (HB)
• Lather: Speick shaving cream
• Post-Shave: Capanova Natural aftershave repair balm
• Fragrance: Versace Eros Energy EdP sample

2 passes on the head (one WTG with a safety razor, ATG with a Headblade) and 1 pass for the neckline WTG. A very smooth and comfortable shaving experience.

So I am actually travelling - just a short trip until Thursday, but still nice. A mix of wellness, sightseeing and shopping is planned. So I will do my BVWSC shave tomorrow in an unfamiliar bathroom, but today's shave was already really gooooood.

Speick shaving cream can get really slick for me: my modus operandi is applying the cream on my wet scalp, spreading it evenly with wet hands and then use a soaked shaving brush to really lather it up good. Some in the hobby tend to frown upon creams, but it all depends on the right technique.

Unfortunately my Feather Popular is seemingly broken - the safety bar is so far misaligned that it didn't have any problems with the long stubble on my dome. The blade gap was like a tiny abyss I was gazing into on one side, so I only did a WTG pass with it. Luckily, I brought another cartridge razor as a backup besides the HB.

Have a nice day or evening, folks! Looking forward to tomorrow's BVWSC event ✌🏻

November 19, 2024 -- Bleu Teusday

• Brush: AP Shave Co Summer 28mm G5C

• Blade Holder: Gillette Fatboy E4 (setting: 4)

• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum (3)

• Lather: Stirling Soap Co. - Deep Blue Sea - Soap

• Aftershave: Stirling Soap Co. - Deep Blue Sea - Aftershave

• Fragrance: Chanel - Bleu de Chanel

2 passes. Face lather. Excellent shave.

A very enjoyable FLS this morning. Forgot to post until now.

November 19, 2024

• Brush: Maggard 24mm Synthetic
• Razor: Chiseled Face - Legacy Raw Titanium (#69)
• Blade: Personna Lab Blue (1)
• Lather: Barrister & Mann - Vespers - Soap
• Post Shave: Barrister & Mann - Lyssa - Aftershave
• Post Shave: Goodfellow & Co. - Face Lotion - Kelp & Sea Mineral
• Fragrance: Barrister & Mann - Lavanille - EdP

Really nice shave. I was inspired by @snooting@sub.wetshaving.social who just got one of these razors. It pairs quite nicely with Lab Blue blades, but honestly it works with just about anything.

Vespers is amazing.

Tuesday, November 19, 2024: FLS

• Brush: Grizzly Bay - v24 Fanchurian 26mm badger
• Razor: RazoRock - Game Changer .68
• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum (3)
• Lather: Chiseled Face - Ghost Town Barber
• Post: Chiseled Face - Ghost Town Barber Aftershave splash
• Post: Stirling - Glacial Unscented Aftershave balm
• Frag: Chiseled Face - Ghost Town Barber EdP

Not my best lather this morning as I was rushing through to finish before a morning meeting. Still great results though, the CF base always performs well for me.

Have a good day y'all!

🍳 Created with Neovim & sotd.nvim 🍳

Nov 19, 2024 - Talent Tuesday: Wolf Mother

• Brush: Chisel & Hound Punch 26mm v24 Badger Knot
• Razor: Karve Shaving Co. Overlander
• Blade: Gillette 7 O’Clock Super Stainless (Green) [7]
• Lather: Talent Soap Factory - Wolf Mother - Soap
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Seville in Reserve - Aftershave
• Fragrance: Barrister and Mann - Seville - Eau de Toilette

Edit: title correction

GEM Days 3a/14: 1924 Shovelhead – Tue 19 Nov 2024

• Brush: Dogwood Handcrafts - Papa Eld with Declaration Grooming B3
• Razor: Ever-Ready 1924 Shovelhead
• Blade: Personna GEM PTFE
• Lather: Barrister and Mann – Eigengrau
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth – Santa Noir
• Fragrance: Declaration Grooming – Bangarang

This is shave five of my run through all 14 generations of GEM-style razors, and I have reached the 1924 Shovelhead, the ugly duckling of the GEM family.

The 1924 Shovelhead

This is a simplified version of yesterday's 1914. It finally breaks with the visual similarity thatthe 1912 and 1914 shared and marks the first appearance of cast parts (the neck between the handle and the base plate) in GEM-style razors razors. This picture (the 1924 Shovelhead is on the bottom left, the 1914 on the top right) shows well that like the 1914, it has what looks like a deep-drawn top cap, but it is hinged at the front on either side of the safety bar, and like the 1914 is has separate springs for pushing the spine to align the edge with the blade stops (blue 1) and for clamping down the top cap (red 2). So both razors are attempts at two improvements over the 1912: 1) the top cap opens fully for convenient blade loading, 2) the actions of clamping and aligning the blade are decoupled. So what's the improvement of the 1924 Shovelhead over the 1914 when they seek the same goal? It certainly can't be the looks.

It seems to me that the reason is manufacturing cost. This profile picture shows well just how much simpler the base plate of the Shovelhead really is. Again, the 1924 is on the left and the 1914 on the right. The base plate of the 1914 is a sheet of brass, bent almost to close on itself again, and has a tapped thread for the handle, three rivets, and two hinges and requires quite involved tooling to be assembled efficiently. The Shovelhead on the other hand, has all the complicated geometry concentrated in the cast neck (where the complicated geometry doesn't matter as much at scale), and the base plate is a roughly flat sheet of brass riveted on the neck. Simple, but it left no space for the clamping spring under the base plate, so it needed to go on the top cap, and the hinge needed to move to the front. Cleverly, the clamping spring and the alignment springs are cut from the same sheet and are attached with just 2 rivets, unlike the to separate parts forming the springs in the 1914 needing 4 rivets.

The shave

I like to hike in the mountains, and Eigengrau immediately takes me to evening winter hikes in the Valaisan alps in the conifer forests just under the tree line. It's a very dry area, so the snow cover is often incomplete until well into January, and the thick layer of conifer needle humus lies there mostly exposed and fragrant. You can see the tracks of snow rabbits and chamois in the snow patches, and when the sun starts to set everything quiets down. Peaceful. Bangarang is not at all a winter fragrance, and also more lively than serene Eigengrau.

The 1924 feels similar to the 1914, with maybe a little less toast buttering. It's not surprising that they feel similar, given how they have a similar geometry and the same handle.

The handle

If I remember correctly, it was this pencil handle that felt too small for u/EldrormR, so he chopped off the head of an MMOC (Tomorrow's razor), drilled it, cemented a thread post into it, and slapped it onto a 1924 head to create what we now know and love as the MM24. I'll be using that variant for the Second Luxury Shave.

The timeline

1. ~~1906-1953: GEM 1912/Star Cadet/Junior/Damaskeene~~
   • FLS
   • SLS
2. ~~1914-1927: 1914~~
   • FLS
   • SLS
3. 1924-1933: Shovelhead ← We are here
4. 1930-1932: Micromatic Open Comb Gen 1 (Bumpless baseplate)
5. 1932-1941: Micromatic Open Comb Gen 2 (double-edge Micromatic GEM blades)
6. 1940-1943: Micromatic Clog-Pruf
7. 1945-1946: Micromatic Clog-Pruf Peerless
8. 1947-1950: Micromatic Flying Wing/Bullet Tip, with guiding eye until 1948, with plastic knob in the last year
9. 1949-1953: GEM Jewel/Streamline/Ambassador (The beginning of the end IMHO)
10. 1950: New GEM Feather Weight, renamed to "Slim-V Flat Top" in 1953, British version sold as "Natural Angle" by Ever-Ready
11. 1955-1958: GEM V-Slim "Heavy Flat Top" (G-Bar, shiny chrome), New V Natural Angle Heavy Flat Top (E-Bar, less shiny nickel)
12. 1958-1965: Push Button
13. 1965-1973: Contour
14. 1973-1979: Countour II (The last GEM razor)