HomeAwayFromHone

@HomeAwayFromHone@sub.wetshaving.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mailcall⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You know, I’ve seen you mention this a time or two and I think noticed it elsewhere but still have yet to try it. Next razor I’m going to try and remember to bring some peanuts around. Usually I just try to get it shaving arm hair to determine if a bevel is set and then I cut an unsupported strand of hair as the final test but this does seem more convenient and might offer better feedback for the stages in between.

  I looked to your videos for a bit more detail and found this, thanks: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieTUQM0YwZA

  Also, I’m curious which microscope you use? …nevermind, you answer in a comment here www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmD7UJ6e0II&lc=Ugz6_cFe2R… that it’s this one www.dinolite.us/products/…/am73515mt8a/

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[MOD] Request for pictures to use as community banners.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Great, looking forward to the new decor whenever you get a sec. No hurry of course, never wise to hurry when straight razors are involved.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[MOD] Request for pictures to use as community banners.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I tossed in a different thumbnail on the straight razor sub because I was a bit sick of it being the same image but I’ve not the level of interesting in photography your SotD photos clearly exhibit so I’d be happy to see you swap out the super generic banner if you’d still be interested. Also not partial to the thumbnail I chose beyond the general idea that they not be the same thing and that it’d be kind of neat if the thumbnail showed the grind of a razor toe-on as the spine-as-honing-guide is very core to what makes a straight razor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wednesday SOTD Thread - November 13th, 2024 (#521)⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh neat, didn’t know they did a titanium one. Was it just that special edition or did it become a regular product at some point?

  Unfortunately I think the best we can do with the situation is appreciate that they ever bothered to make the machined ones and that they are almost certainly subsidised by the zamac. Which is also why the price isn’t that far apart: few would buy the machined one if they sold it at the same margins as the zinc alloy.

  It really is exhausting though. Every time I make a purchase decision I have to be skeptical because I might be getting the zamac-with-fancy-handle version of whatever product or service I’m trying to buy. Avoiding that takes time which is how they sell all this junk at a high margin. Especially with how we’ve integrated almost every facet of life into the economy. Contributes a bit to a sense of despair. So I try to appreciate the people that do sincere work and, instead of being frustrated by it, try to consider the time it takes to winnow the quality offerings from the grift as doing my part to signal a better direction for society.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sunday SOTD Thread - October 20th, 2024 (#497)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Aha! I knew it! I had this trepidation when I sold this one pixelfed.social/i/web/post/748289303255129698 especially because they also took this very similar one pixelfed.social/i/web/post/748289996039802817 …and I guess it’s probably for the best I abandon the foolish notions I had when I listed this imgur.com/a/mardor-z12y8cw and it was especially foolhardy to have ever considered parting with imgur.com/a/chassaigne-k0Fy4tt 🤔

  But it’s also satisfying to set a new bevel, just not the same if it was already shaving fine (not to mention wasteful). And honing as a service seems less relaxing for myriad reasons. So compromises must be made. Thankfully(?) I’ve slowed a fair bit since the initial burst when I was getting into it, settling into a bit of an equilibrium with a handful in and out each year.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sunday SOTD Thread - October 20th, 2024 (#497)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My honing enthusiasm provided too much rationalisation for razor acquisition and so I have …several. The winnowing process is ongoing and I’m proud to have sold 5 x 5/8 last week.

  6/8 is harder because I like them more. Lately I’m wondering: Do I really need two 6/8 hollow-but-stiff round point French blades?

  Image Image

  I’m partial to the Grelot. I do appreciate that it’s a bit more hollow and as a Canadian I enjoy the etch. Plus it’s my only nice Grelot and there’s some cachet there. And it’s in better shape. But there’s just something to the TI and it’s similarly my best TI and the pitting isn’t anywhere important so just sorta adds character. And it’s more towards a quarter hollow so …sort of a different thing altogether?

  Inconclusive. More study required. Luckily they don’t take a lot of space.

  Also: I’m always curious to see the grind toe-on every time I see a picture of a straight razor and that shot should somehow always be included in the metadata or something :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mailcall! Fancy, mysterious and a bit creepy Friodur 50⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Coooooool. Thanks for sharing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Mail Call] Ed Wüsthof 220 Barber's Kibg⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  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?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The other new arrival: a Christy razor⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Any durable double edged razors at the sub £50 mark?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mailcall⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  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.

  Image

  “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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mailcall⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  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?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wednesday SOTD Thread - November 01, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  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? imgur.com/a/QJX47Yg

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How hordes grown – or how I learned to love Acquisition Disorder⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thursday SOTD Thread - October 26, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:
  • Razor: Weck Sextoblade
  • Blade: Kismet (2)
  • Brush: Mühle 23mm STF
  • Lather: Canada Shaving Soap
  • Post: Thayers

  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).

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thursday SOTD Thread - October 26, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tuesday SOTD Thread - October 24, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Sorry, I just peeked at the config options and have never run any of this so no idea about the interaction with Lemmy or how to troubleshoot that. What I’d do though is spin up a toy instance on another subdomain/locally in a container and try to reproduce it there. Maybe with a copy of the data from production if that’s easy enough to pull off.

  But ya only in retrospect - I wouldn’t have expected changing the banner or icon to be a risky operation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tuesday SOTD Thread - October 24, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Just poked around because I was curious, it does look like the config for pict-rs lets you specify a format to convert things to and a max size/quality: git.asonix.dog/asonix/pict-rs/src/…/pict-rs.toml#…

  I’d suggest WebP with a quality of 85 and max dimensions of 3840x3840 (because 4k is 3840x2160).

  That takes djundjila’s photo for today (a 4236x2677 jpeg) from 1.9Mb down to 360Kb for a 3840x2427 WebP.

  You might also consider AVIF as that’s widely supported as well and looking like it’ll probably become the new standard but for now is a bit CPU intensive until CPUs start adding SIMD for it. Too bad JPEGXL lost momentum, it was kinda better (and less CPU intensive). But if the server doesn’t mind chewing on it …that same SotD as a quality 66 AVIF is just 160Kb, eg. less than a tenth the size.

  For more info about quality settings: industrialempathy.com/…/avif-webp-quality-setting…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tuesday SOTD Thread - October 24, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for your efforts and yay, that works here too! I can paste them even. Nice. Interestingly, I copied a JPG by right clicking in Firefox and it wound up as a PNG when I pasted that. But maybe that’s the browser? Still, it’d be neat if the site converts to something more efficient like WebP and maybe caps the res at 4k …though maybe storage is cheap enough at this point that we could each put a full res SotD from our phones for the next decade without really being a burden? …and now I wonder if the transcoding can be done client side via wasm or something. Yawn, I should sleep, rambling.

  Oh! One thing though: earlier I tried pasting my SotD to another Lemmy instance to see if that works and it did fine. I didn’t post it and cancelled the preview. However the image stuck around. Wondered if and how those get mopped up, maybe a cron job? It seems to be there still some hours later, might check tomorrow just out of curiosity.

  Image

  (heh I think you restarted while I was trying to post this so will also be interesting if the image persists, though presumably shouldn’t be orphaned now that it’s referenced in a comment?)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tuesday SOTD Thread - October 24, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:
  • Razor: Kai Excelia
  • Blade: Kai Mild (4)
  • Brush: Omega 10015 22mm boar
  • Lather: Mitchell’s Wool Fat (tallow)
  • Post: aloe

  Been messing around with some honing experiments on troublesome razors and wanted to give my face a break so last shave I used my Fili as that’s usually a nice vacation. It was almost but I’m not sure if it was the state of my face, not having used that blade in a while or maybe I really do have a bit of a reaction to Darkfall so I figured let’s eliminate some variables and find out about the soap, I’d been meaning to get to know this new Kismet blade a bit better and compare to AC so I’m going to stick to unscentedish soaps and one pass shavette shaves with quality blades for a bit. That’s almost a theme thingy, One’n’done’tober 11vember …something. But I’m not quite that organised and will start messing with it soon enough by seeing how Darkfall goes once I do a few of these then maybe digging out some paste edges to compare to the shavettes.

  I like Kai AC blades. This was nice, been a while. Feels a bit sharper than the Kismet yet less stressful as this setup seems less pointy (even though the corners are muted on the Kismet) plus the extra weight lends stability. I guess AC is the wedge shavette and Weck the hollow.

  Oh, and this inspired me to order the Canada Shaving Soap I’d been vaguely interested in for a while (as it’s rumoured to be comparable to MdC). So far I’d resisted as why would I use that much unscented? But it does have a place and maybe it’s SV-ish too, was really enjoying SV lately so here’s hoping. Looks promising anyhow: badgerandblade.com/…/canada-shaving-soap-review.6…

  i.imgur.com/joMktr1.jpg

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tuesday SOTD Thread - October 24, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Which gap do you have for the WR4?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tuesday SOTD Thread - October 24, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Side note: Uploading pictures is so much faster since the migration. It’s almost like having pictures didn’t have to be a PITA 🤔

  Heh, welllll… I just tried to upload one. I get an HTTP 400 from the post to the /pictrs/image endpoint and the response body is Request error: error sending request for url (http://pictrs:8080/image): operation timed out. I thought maybe because I was pasting a largish image so I tried a 350kb or so JPG and clicked the upload button …nope, same deal. Oh, and the UI tries to parse the body of the error response as JSON so it pops up a red box with SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scheduled maintenance on this instance⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks, this is way, WAY faster.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Questions Thread (Newbie Friendly) - October 23, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks, that’ll do for my purposes anyhow as I only get around to this once or twice a year so we’ll probably have something set up by the next time I bother to list something.

  Curious what you’re referring to re: username spoofing though, that seems concerning. Do you just mean the ability to create walden@lemmy.world or something and potentially confuse users that don’t understand the federated nature of the platform? Or something sneakier?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Monday Mail Call and Show-and-Tell - October 23, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I am selling some interesting straight razors over on Reddit as that’s where the audience is but I really appreciate the community here and the idea of federation. So I’d totally give you guys a 5% discount (and another 5% if I recognise you and we work out a trade or some way you can pay me without my covering paypal fees). They’re also just a neat and varied bunch of razors that I think are also worth a bit of show-and-tell (won’t be too sad if I wind up hanging onto them for a while yet).

  (I first sought approval for this unusual use of the thread.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Questions Thread (Newbie Friendly) - October 23, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m really enthusiastic about the idea of community controlled platforms so I prefer to engage here rather than Reddit but am selling some razors over there due to the larger audience. We don’t seem to have a community sales thread in this sub though, so which would be the most appropriate thread if I wanted to link that and offer Lemmy users a discount? Maybe the show & tell could be broadened to also including showing what we have on offer?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Saturday SOTD Thread - October 14, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks and you too. I had two negative tests but saw some anecdotes that these kits have a very high (like >50%) false negative rate (but few false positives) so I’d probably have to do a bunch to really say anything conclusive. Especially since they apparently do even less well with current variants.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Saturday SOTD Thread - October 14, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks! Things are looking up so here’s hoping…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Saturday SOTD Thread - October 14, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Been feeling a bit ill and frustrated by some sort of persistent low grade coldvid. At some point I check the mail and a couple Kismet blades for my Weck from @djundjila@sub.wetshaving.social were there! Thanks again. Wasn’t quite feeling up to it until last shave a couple days ago I used the blade that was in there, a Fromm according to the spine (but perhaps a decade or more older as it came with the Weck in a lot). And today I tried the Kismet.

  Fromm

  Really enjoyed that shave. Been a while since I’d used one of my shavettes or a pasted blade and I do enjoy the extra bump in sharpness, help me be really present with it and use a tight angle with a vanishingly light touch. However it came with a tiny weeper that sort of highlighted two pores, easly dealt with by alum but still, tsk, thats unusual with my less lasery natural edges, especially WtG. Managed AtG without adding to that and overally pretty happy with this blade. And the Weck generally, glad I didn’t let it go when I was thinking pfff I have straights. It’s a good benchmark and something to strive for with pasted edges.

  …though I also saw why I haven’t been back to this much since getting a few JNATs, definitely ended up with a bit more in the way of ingrowns.

  Kismet

  Today I gave the Kismet a try and had a similar result (weeper moved though and had a twin this time). Also WtG because I decided I’d leave off AtG for fewer ingrowns although the extra sharpness is definitely appreciated there so it was tempting. Overall I really enjoyed it and consider it a resounding success because that was a fresh blade with nearly the comfort of one with 3 shaves on it and I didn’t even palm strop it (On that note: @DaveWave94@sub.wetshaving.social you might consider palm stropping for fresh GEM blades, I find it helps those in particular quite a bit for me).

  Overall though I think I mainly like the Weck: it wasn’t hugely better than the vintage(ish) Fromm so I might try the current ones when I eventually use these up as I think there are more options for me to source those. Kismet was probably my favourite new-blade-in-a-shavette though I think the Captain Titan Mild AC comes close.

  Er, to make this more SoTD I guess I should point out I was using DG Darkfall and a 23mm Muhle STF.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Saturday SOTD Thread - October 14, 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Curious to hear how the honing goes, some say the steel is noticeably different and I’ve seen a fair few pictures with crazy looking bevels that imply a challenging geometry. My only TIs have been vintage and fairly straight so I’ve yet to explore these.

  Oh the Kismet blades arrived, thanks again! Recently did a control shave with what I had in there and will try it next.