This seems like a really nice size, good compromise between heft/lather handling and agility. Plus I like the jimping on it. Somehow I suspect you'll hang on to this one.
And ya, wow, did you stumble onto a hidden cache of underappreciated and underpriced blades or did you set out to expand your collection like this?
I often see people wedging injector blades into things eg. Ender's, Ronson, etc. but haven't given it enough thought to guess if there's a reasonable way to do that here.
You might also consider vintage razors, a lot of them are brass and they've stood the test of time to get this far.
Alternatively, if what you really want is machined stainless you can probably get it for that price from dscosmetic or yaqi on AliExpress. They have many models so it'd be worth searching out some reviews.
I'm unsurprised to see an overlap between meditation and straight razor appreciation. After all, using, honing and stropping my straights are some of my favourite meditations though I still try to keep a more formal practice.
There are also thick framebacks but they're basically just like a light wedge so I think you're right to prioritise the Japanese ones.
I like the look of tapered blades and was lucky enough to score one but it's been at my brother's place waiting for scales for a while now. One day.
Rattlers are neat but also basically feel like a light wedge however I have this one smaller one I quite like, took a nice edge, slight smile, etc. sometimes a razor just fits.
"Lancet" is what Mappin called these, but there have been a few imitators and while I've not tried one quite like that though I have this one with a hollowed out spine that maybe is at least in the same sort of category? Heh, actually that mailcall is pretty topical overall, even has a lather catcher.
Yes, but I have 100 FHS-10 blades and no other razor to use them in😅
Good call on the Audiostrop then, much more appealing than the Oneblade (which I never really felt drawn to in any way) and I liked the noisy feedback from it though I did move mine along as I could get a similar effect from the Wilkinson.
Edit: closing a stray image search tab I spotted this link to an especially nice lancet-ish razor.
For frameback be sure to try one of the thin Japanese ones, they're almost like a stiff hollow and kind of sing. Hm, others... have you tried a lancet blade? Sheffield with a rattler grind? With a taper? Oh! What about the Wilkinson Pall Mall / Dunhill? It takes (quarter hollow) wedge blades but can use Gem too. Not only does it have a roller guard but you can adjust the exposure. Neat thing.
Speaking of Gem blades, you know you can pull the spine off a Gem and use it in that Autostrop right?
Belatedly: "Aye".
Does your 472 have the decorated spine like the worn one I picked up early in my exploration of straights and still keep with the edge it came with as one of my references? https://imgur.com/a/QJX47Yg
Thanks for sharing! I must admit, I was slow to come around to this way of thinking, one soap (Williams), one brush (house brand badger), one razor (Merkur 38c) for years but then I tried a straight razor and that all went out the window so on top of the comprehensive arsenal of straights I have a whole spectrum of soap, various DE new and old (even a few vintage blades), Gem razors, injectors (the twin blades from Japan are amazing), a lather catcher, Rolls, and a Wilkinson Dunhill where I hone the blades (pretty much the same as the Pall Mall). And today I tried this new giant tub of unscented soap I bought for some bizarre reason.
Very glad for the chill low key hobby, I think my favourite part is the utter lack of urgency, and as a bonus my kitchen knives have never been this well maintained. Plus theoretically I can recoup most of the (not life changing) money if I ever have need of it and the stuff is small, it'd all fit in an unremarkable box so I don't really see any downside.
My one-pass few-variables shaves continue. Kismet blades are nice, this went better but maybe it was the soap--my Canadian MdC tribute showed up quickly (snagged one of the last two they had at amazon) and wow, the tub was so full it didn't quite close. Needed to add water as I unexpectedly loaded a sizable amount of soap, I think I expected it to load slower being so hard. Very slick, and very unscented unlike MWF which I find stronger than I expected (though unobjectionable).
I think I saw someone complaining that the B-20 has rounded corners and barely hits the posts on their injector so it might be perfect for a shavette.
So, typically, I try to hone through any pitting to get a clean edge. I might tolerate some on the bevel, but not right near the edge where the stresses of shaving and stropping might cause it to collapse and break that nice clean line.
However...
I have this one razor. I used it today. I quite like it: it has very little wear and was well ground so it has a very thin bevel. It shaves well and it holds an edge. Indeed, it's one of the few edges I've put a dozen shaves on. But I have a confession: I left a tiny pit at the edge. Because there was probably going to be another and another and... well, usually I'd just take some metal off until we were in reasonable steel. I didn't want to this time, so I left all this (which you can only see at all on one side):
...and while I had a mostly clean edge, it did have a small pit at the edge. But nothing major, it's not a serrated knife or anything. So I went with it to see what happened. Every shave I made a point to see if the heel was giving me more irritation than elsewhere on the blade or anything like that and ...nah. It's fine.
Which reminded me of this post at Science of Sharp where you can see, based on the scale, how very much bigger a hair is than a razor edge. And I think my skin is at least as thick as a hair or I'd be bleeding way more often. A quick search confirms even the thinnest skin (eyelids apparently) has something like 50 microns of epidermis.
So maybe I shouldn't be so surprised that I can't notice a difference from some tiny pit on the edge? Maybe I should more often err on the side of leaving steel on a nice blade even if it's not so great?
Coooooool. Thanks for sharing.