Troubleshooting My Gillette Adjustable

[inkling]

I recently procured a Gillette Adjustable from ebay and decided to begin using it this week while I was on the road. My only DE experience is with my trusty Merkur HD with Merkur blades. It shaves like a dream, but I decided to branch out a bit.

Each day my shave consisted of:
- Lots of hot water
- Vulfix #2233
- GFT Limes (M, W, F) or Musgo Real (Tu, Th)
- Gillette Adjustable w/ Merkur blade
- GFT Coral Skin Food

The first day worked okay, but not as good as with my HD.
After that, every day left a strange combo of stubble and razor burn. Today was the absolute worst. I would bring the razor over my whiskers and it would barely cut any of them.

I radically changed the settings, ranging from 1 to 9. One day I would start at 3 which didn't cut much hair, then would raise it to 5 and then 7 and 9, but none of the settings seemed to get the job done.

So here's where I need some guidance from my fellow wet shavers:
- Do Merkur blades just not work well in a Gillette adjustable? Would you recommend trying another brand? (I've never used anything else.)
- Do I need to change the blade more often? (I usually switch it every Monday after 6-7 shaves.)
- What setting would you recommend, since I'm used to the HD?
- Is it possible I just got a bum razor? Nothing looks wrong with it at all, but who knows?

Thanks for any and all advice!

[Phog Allen]

Hi inkling. I'm going to pass along two things that are strictly my opinion and may not be accurate for anyone else. When I first returned to the DE, I was using Merkur blades in a Gillette adj. DE and they were far and away better than the Walmart Personnas and marginally better than my Schick DE's. Then a funny thing happened about a year ago. I started getting poor shaves and a lot more irritation than I was used to. I ascribed this to my poor form and started toying around with differing techniques. All to no avail. Then I tried using my old Schick blades(coveted stash you know)and things got MARKEDLY better. I then tried my now de facto standard, the Feather and have not looked back. The only blade I've tried that comes close to the Feather is the Derby. A very fine blade. So, I do think there may be a quality control issue with Merkur but I have no empirical evidence to say so. Only a seat of the pants "yeah, there's a problem" sort of thing. The other issue that comes to mind is that I've seen guys mention that Merkur blades perform better in Merkur razors than others. I poo pooed this until the blade problem showed up. I have no Merkur razor to compare against but YOU do. I would try a fresh Merkur blade in your Merkur HD and see if proper results return. If so, then the question may be answered. If not, then there may indeed be a quality control issue at Merkur. The other issue may just be that you have a damaged or worn out Gillette adj. Doubtful but always possible. You never know if it was dropped 30 years ago on a nice, hard concrete floor! It could have bent the head a small amount that is not noticable to the naked eye. Again, I doubt it. These things were bullet proof. However, I own three and they ALL shave just a bit differently. Keep us posted on your results.

Regards, Todd

[With The Grain]

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[yasuo200365]

Use a setting of 4 and pay attention to the angle by listening carefully ..., once you've figured it out it will become 2nd nature.

Regards
John