Slant + Feather = Tractor Face

[Bargepole]

Had my first chance to use El Slanto with a brand new Feather blade this morning. (CF Lime cream, Coral prep etc etc.) Lovely shave, nice and close and smooth as silk. A different experience from any other blade -- even the Swede -- in the razor.

It feels more like a surgical blade than a normal razorblade: very smooth and sharp, but quite rigid and controllable. No "flutter" like you can get with the very thin-feeling Tescos, not roughness as with Merkurs.

But although I was as light as a feather (ha) with the thing & took three passes only (with, diagonal, across) I find I have, for the first time for ages, a mild case of "Tractor Face" an hour later. (You know what I mean -- that ruddy skin that old-time farmers used to get before they put cabs on tractors.)

It's probably a technique thing, and I'm going to stick with this rig for a week or two and see if I can get it down. First impressions: as good as everyone says, but I think I need to perhaps lessen the angle from around 30 to around 20 degrees. I have no reason for thinking this other than the fact that all my Japanese cooks' knives are very shallow-ground, a good 8 - 12 degrees shallower grind angle than e.g. Henckel or Wusthof.

(Perhaps I should try the knife-sharpening trick: slide the knife across the chopping-board steepening the angle until it just starts to bite, and that's the angle to use on the steel or the water-stone.)

[ichabod]

Tractor face is a good way to describe what I get with the Feather AC straight razor. A matter of practice, I think, to handle the sharp blade in two very exposed settings - the slant and bare.

[Joe Lerch]

(Perhaps I should try the knife-sharpening trick: slide the knife across the chopping-board steepening the angle until it just starts to bite, and that's the angle to use on the steel or the water-stone.)

If you substitute the face for the board, that's the way I recommend finding the flattest blade angle. However, once you have it, increase it just a touch so you don't drop out accidentally while shaving.

Another thing to try is changing the angle. Start flat to reduce the whiskers and when you're down to a fine stubble increas the angle and drop the pressure. That forces the edge a little more into the skin, increasing closeness.

On the other hand, you problem could be overshaving, removing skin along with the whiskers. You handle that by flattening the blade angle and shaving as lightly as you can until you find a pressure that will shave only the whiskers.

[Ben]

This will sound strange, but you can actually shave too close and still have stubble. Cutting with too much pressure or too many times in one direction will give you good burn and irritation, and you may actually still feel serious stubble, especially if you have yet to go in different directions.

[Bargepole]

This will sound strange, but you can actually shave too close and still have stubble. Cutting with too much pressure or too many times in one direction will give you good burn and irritation, and you may actually still feel serious stubble, especially if you have yet to go in different directions.

Yes... experience tells me that, but I'm having difficulty figuring out the actual mechanics involved. How does the blade get down to the epidermis if there's hair blocking its path? Curious...

[vespergo]

tractor face... hehe, now i know what to call it. i experience the same thing with feather blades in almost every razor i've tried.. too used to the IP's. once i start using my feather supply i'll just have to plow through them all before i change so i can remember the technique.

[Joe Lerch]

This will sound strange, but you can actually shave too close and still have stubble. Cutting with too much pressure or too many times in one direction will give you good burn and irritation, and you may actually still feel serious stubble, especially if you have yet to go in different directions.

True, but as a Feather user, you must notice that with the sharper blade, the direction you're cutting relative to the grain doesn't matter as much.

For example, experimentation showed me that I could get an almost finished cut in almost any area of mt facewith one pass with the grain (I don't do it because it's against all principles of reduction and produces the least comfortable shave. It is true, however, that you could miss your tougher spots if you don't go in the right direction. For example, I can't get a clean shave without going against the grain.

Ultimately, tractor face comes from a failure of technique or over aggressive shaving.

[Joe Lerch]

This will sound strange, but you can actually shave too close and still have stubble. Cutting with too much pressure or too many times in one direction will give you good burn and irritation, and you may actually still feel serious stubble, especially if you have yet to go in different directions.

Yes... experience tells me that, but I'm having difficulty figuring out the actual mechanics involved. How does the blade get down to the epidermis if there's hair blocking its path? Curious...

There are many factors involved, but it's a mistake to use a cutting tool as a model. The cutting tool is intended to shave it's supporting surface, exactly what we don't want. What we do want is a blade that cuts little trees projecting from the surface as low as possible, without shaving or scraping the supporting surface. There are two sources of irritation overshaving and abrasion.

Visualizing a dull blade is one example of how you can get a poor shave with lots of irritation. The blade will cut or tear some whiskers and skip over others (more resistant), but the extra pressure you nees has two effects: it increases abrasion of the skin and it decreases control of the edge, making it possible you can shave some skin without intending to do so.

I can also give you a theoretical model of how you can reduce a beard very well with a sharp edge with no possibility of irritation or nicking. Since the edge has a bevel, the actual cutting edge is spaced from the sides of the blade. If you lie the blade flat on the skin and don't apply enough pressur to indent the skin, the edge will be above the skin and will cut the whiskers so that their remaining height is the distance of the edge from the side of the blade. However, assuming you have some lubrication and cushioning, there is no possibility of the edge touching the skin, so there is no irritation, either abrasive or overshaving.

That's the goal with reduction. And that's thereason to use the flattest blade angle and lowest pressure. When you're down to that fine stubble, you want to force the edge into the skin slightly to cut the whiskers as low as possible. For a trained shaver, one way to do it is to increase the blade angle, but that increases the proportion of the pressure towards the face, so you need to compensate by reducing pressure so as not to overshave. When you find the sweet spot you get BBS without irritating your face. If this is the first time you actually touch skin, you won't accumulate enough irritation to hurt comfort.

If the whiskers stood perpendicular to the skin, everything would work fine, but for most of us they are at an angle, and not a consistent one all over. So, we have the problem of grain. THe problem gets worse the flatter the whiskers are to the face. If they're really flat you can visualize that with the grain there would be a tendency to slide over them and against the grain the edge would scoop under them and be accelerated towards the face. In the this last case you can see that the force needed to cut the whiskers could easily increase the force toward the face enough to cause abrasion or loss of control.

In both cases, you're cutting more along the length of the hair than it's width, a bad situation even for the sharpest blade. That's why it's so important to stretch the skin so as to make the whiskers stand up (against the grain), rather than lie down.

There are many other situations in which the skin can get irritated. I just tried to portray a few common ones.

[yoyology]

Joe-

That was an extremely clear and detailed explanation. I have to admit that I never really thought much about the mechanics of these things, and your description has made me understand some of what I need to do to reduce irritation and nicks, especially with my against-the-grain pass on my neck.

Thank you very much!

[Bargepole]

What Karl said.

[Joe Lerch]

Joe-

That was an extremely clear and detailed explanation. I have to admit that I never really thought much about the mechanics of these things, and your description has made me understand some of what I need to do to reduce irritation and nicks, especially with my against-the-grain pass on my neck.

Thank you very much!

That's great!

You're welcome.

BTW, if you find that the whiskers on your neck are extremely flat, there are more things to consider. Come back and let's talk about it some more.

[Bargepole]

BTW, if you find that the whiskers on your neck are extremely flat, there are more things to consider. Come back and let's talk about it some more.

Well since you ask, Joe...

The whiskers on my neck are extremely flat. I wonder if there are more things to consider. Can we talk about it some more?

[Joe Lerch]

BTW, if you find that the whiskers on your neck are extremely flat, there are more things to consider. Come back and let's talk about it some more.

Well since you ask, Joe...

The whiskers on my neck are extremely flat. I wonder if there are more things to consider. Can we talk about it some more?

Even when you get down to a fine stubble, extremely flat whiskers may be difficult to cut below the skin. And if you are prone to ingrowns, it can happen at htis point, so you need to be careful about how short you cut flat whiskers.

You will understand from what I already said that stretching against the grain to stand up the whiskers becomes a major consideration. If you need to finish against the grain, like many do, to get a clean shave, you will end up shaving right towards the stretching hand. Be careful.

Assuming nothing else has worked to get those difficult whiskers, you can now try pressure shaving (yes, I said that dirty word) against or partially against the grain. The theory is you stretch gently to stand up the whiskers then press the blade flat against the skin to depress the skin so as to get under the whiskers, then you chop them off.

This is not without difficulty. For one thing, stretching and depressing the skin work against each other. That is, if you stretch the skin too tight, you won't be able to depress it. So there's definitely a tradeoff. You should be getting the idea that this is a technique to try only after your basic technique is grooved.

As for the pressure, note that it's coming from the side of the blade. With good lubrication you can take some pressure from the blade bevel without getting irritation. What you can't take is pressure directed toward the edge, because that's how you cut yourself. So you need to practice this a little. Place the blade against the skin with a flat angle (the first time, make sure it's so flat that there's no cutting action). Now apply enough pressure to notice the skin getting depressed and increase the angle without reduceing pressure until you just start cutting. You need to maintain that pressure and just a slightly larger angle, so you don't stop cutting. Experiment a little so you feel cutting but no irritation of the skin.

Using that approach you need to go against the grain as much as you can . You can also try coming in from other angles to see if you can cut any more. By the time you finish this, most of the tough whiskers will be gone. It will get better as you get accustomed this kind of shaving. If anything is left, you can probably pick it up on a touchup by using a large blade angle (maybe 30 degrees or a little more) and the lightest touch.

[fallingwickets]

Michael's post inspired me to buy the same......Merkur "Hefty Classic - Slant Bar and a stack of feather blades.

I've been ER free since I started about 2 months ago using the Merkur blades. Hopefully the tradition continues. Joe's detailed descriptions should certainly help

Clive