It's made to use standard DE blades.
I don't know of any special Stahly blades, offhand.
- Chris
I don't know of any special Stahly blades, offhand.
- Chris
Safety Razor Of the Week, 2/1 2/7 The Stahly Live Blade
- Thread starter AsylumGuido
- Start date
I resurrected my old Stahly and tried it this past weekend. I was not impressed. My Futur gave me a better shave, and no nicks. The Stahly got me a few times, even though it looks less aggressive than the Merkur.
I was in kind of a hurry, when I used it. I'll try it again with more time and better lather, but for the moment, It is consigned to the collectors corner.
I was in kind of a hurry, when I used it. I'll try it again with more time and better lather, but for the moment, It is consigned to the collectors corner.
- Thread starter
- #63
The key to the Stahly is to let it shave you as opposed of shaving with it. Use very little pressure and let its weight work for you. Use a slower than normal stroke to allow its slicing action to work efficiently. Enjoy the massage along with the shave. The Stahly was not designed for the man in a rush. It was a very high line razor designed for the man of means that could enjoy a leisurely shave.
Here is the one I just bought. First working one I have ever owned. The sheer amount of engineering that went into these knocks me out every time I see one. Just an amazing instrument.
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Apparently they have not gone up much in prices. I pulled the plug on a chrome one on ebay listed as working and shown with the case for $30 including shipping. Prices being asked vary fairly widely.
These might be the most underrated de. They shave beautifully. I am mostly using straights and wedge based se these days, but the stahly is one of the small handful of de I retained for personal use, and out of those, one of the very very few non slants. You can pick up a broken one for almost nothing and the head is an engineering marvel even without vibrating.
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I've always viewed the Stahly as a sort of aberration, the result of an inventor with more imagination than practicality. The dearth of personal experience reports seems to validate this. It is not pretty, but as they say, pretty is as pretty does.
The head on those is easily one of the best shaving non slant de heads. The vibration is more trouble than it's worth in the sense that it numbs you to your angle being wrong.
I agree, it's a great head. The rest of it, I find very cumbersome.
I'm going to stick this here because I think this thread is the source of the misinformation about Stahly beginnings.
First P. Stahly was not the inventor of the razor , merely the licensee per multiple agreements with the inventor Harshberger. The two had a lot of legal squabbles pertaining to royalties and Stahly's efforts to deal with overproduction by Stahly's contractors by offloading distribution, lawsuits flying around particularly in the period 1948-50.
The razor was introduced at least as early as 1941, not 1946. Here are ads from 1941 and 1942.
Stahly patents and Harshberger lawsuit judgement here.
Stahly - Google Drive
First P. Stahly was not the inventor of the razor , merely the licensee per multiple agreements with the inventor Harshberger. The two had a lot of legal squabbles pertaining to royalties and Stahly's efforts to deal with overproduction by Stahly's contractors by offloading distribution, lawsuits flying around particularly in the period 1948-50.
The razor was introduced at least as early as 1941, not 1946. Here are ads from 1941 and 1942.
Stahly patents and Harshberger lawsuit judgement here.
Stahly - Google Drive
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Another from 1942, still Birdsell Lab rather than Stahly Inc.
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I have a couple of Stahly razors which no longer work. The last one I bought a few years ago when a member here advised me that the former owner of Stahly still had some razors for sale. I bought one. I've always liked the shaves produced by this razor and it is a mild shaving razor. with no irritation. There are instructions on repairing the wind-up mechanism on line, but I haven't had a chance to try that yet. Hopefully, I will get them working again some day.
The head is fantastic. I use it on aftermarket handles. The big fat vibrating handle doesn't really add anything to the shave, in my opinion.
I think it's a trade off, while I get a marvelous shave with the vibrating set-up it's a big sacrifice in handling, thus my preference for the ATT Atlas handle which is just perfect for me.
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Five weeks with the Stahly as daily driver and I've come to the conclusion that the sharp BIC is the only one of my blades that allows the Stahly to reach its full potential (where a clean up on my head with the Enders-Proline is truly unnecessary). I'm sticking with the BIC from hereon.
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I have two working Stahlys--although one works a bit better than the other. I think that they're great razors. On a couple of occasions, rather than switching razors (as I usually do) every week, I've used my brass (gold?) Stahly for several weeks on end.
I don't think that I've ever nicked or irritated myself with either of my Stahlys.
Here's a photo that I took of the chrome Stahly:
Stahly Live Blade Razor
I don't think that I've ever nicked or irritated myself with either of my Stahlys.
Here's a photo that I took of the chrome Stahly:
Stahly Live Blade Razor
I am now on my second straight well if using nothing but the Stahly head on a UFO TiTan Fine L handle.
It feels amazingly smooth on the face. I think it's a combination of the rounded shape of the safety bars and perhaps the way they are essentially mounted on shock absorbers. I'm surprised no modern maker has yet attempted to copy this design. Might be deceptively difficult.
It feels amazingly smooth on the face. I think it's a combination of the rounded shape of the safety bars and perhaps the way they are essentially mounted on shock absorbers. I'm surprised no modern maker has yet attempted to copy this design. Might be deceptively difficult.
I was thinking the same thing!
The 1940s Series A has a smaller guardspan, exposed blade tabs, and weighs 2g less than my chrome Series C I've been using the last two months. I was expecting a less mild shave given the shorter guardspan but if anything the opposite seemed to be the case, I had a bit harder of a time maintaining optimum angle and pressure. Still a very fine shave.
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