Merkur blade angle with picture

After a couple of weeks of decent but not great shaves with my HD and reading some posts in this forum, I had sort of a eureka moment. I got really close to the mirror and looked at the razor angle and realized I'd been off this whole time. The optimal angle to keep your handle at, it appears, is 45 degrees. If you look closely, holding it this way keeps the blade angle at 30 degrees.

I took a picture and, being the nerd I am, measured the angles with a protractor. The handle is close to 45 degrees and the blade angle is 28.

My shaves have improved greatly. I don't know if this will help anyone but I hope it will.

I figured this out as well a few weeks ago. However, I just guesstimated it.

Very cool, this would have helped me allot when I first started using my HD. It would be also be interesting to compare similar pictures of other razors, like the Tec and the various super speeds.


Thanks,

Monkeyboy said:

After a couple of weeks of decent but not great shaves with my HD and reading some posts in this forum, I had sort of a eureka moment. I got really close to the mirror and looked at the razor angle and realized I'd been off this whole time. The optimal angle to keep your handle at, it appears, is 45 degrees. If you look closely, holding it this way keeps the blade angle at 30 degrees.

I took a picture and, being the nerd I am, measured the angles with a protractor. The handle is close to 45 degrees and the blade angle is 28.

My shaves have improved greatly. I don't know if this will help anyone but I hope it will.

Click to expand...

I always get confused with angles, sorry How does forty five degreess look if you are holding the razor your face. Should the handle be higher or lower than normal?

Great photo - sure to help a lot of people starting out with a HD, but I must ask... are you an engineer?

mdunn said:

Great photo - sure to help a lot of people starting out with a HD, but I must ask... are you an engineer?

Click to expand...

How'd you guess? Yeah, I'm an electrical engineer.

Diagrams with angles, getting out your protractor. You have to admit, these deeds are the deeds or an engineer

a SHAVING engineer (perhaps a new custom title!)

hgeorge648 said:

I always get confused with angles, sorry How does forty five degreess look if you are holding the razor your face. Should the handle be higher or lower than normal?

Click to expand...

If angles are confusing you can do what I did and look closely in the mirror and see that the face of the razor is laying flat against your skin (both parts of the razor around the blade are touching). You can also do as Mantic suggests and try it on your arm looking closely.

mdunn said:

Diagrams with angles, getting out your protractor. You have to admit, these deeds are the deeds or an engineer

a SHAVING engineer (perhaps a new custom title!)

Click to expand...

I know, I don't hide my inner geek core well

Fantastic! Combine this with what's been said here:

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24685

and everybody should have a good idea about blade angles.

Best - MM

The Vision is exactly the same.

I realised this very early on just by holding the cutting edge of the blade to a flat surface and looking at the handle angle.

Glad you got there in he end

mozart said:

Fantastic! Combine this with what's been said here:

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24685

and everybody should have a good idea about blade angles.

Best - MM

Click to expand...

Yes this was a big help for me as were the Mantic videos. When I started off I was just going with that magic 30 degree number and keeping the handle too close to my face. That combined with feather blades gave me smooth shaves but I ended up removing alot of flesh along the way.

I think the confusion is that many gents think the 30-degree angle is between the handle and the face. However, it is between the direction of the blade edge and the face. Figuring out the direction of the blade edge is quite difficult, and it depends on the razor.

Best - MM

Good info.
Thanks!

very nice picture! I guess for me the feel of the blade is what I go for when I shave.

A few things that have helped me greatly over the years of DE shaving to up my results and take the shave to the next level..

1. lather on the face
2. stretch skin
3. wash hair prior to shaving. i'm not sure what it is, maybe the shampoo that cleans the beard area, but for some reason i get better shaves if i wash my hair that day. and i'm talking about the hair on the top of my head. just an ovbservation, take it or leave it.
4. light touch with the razor.
5. and one i learned recently, wash face with cold water after a shave.. it seems to lessen any irritation and make the face look a ton better afterwards. this one took a few years for me to figure out because i naturally don't like cold water. but one day that was all there was so i was forced to use it and i liked the results!

mdunn said:

Diagrams with angles, getting out your protractor. You have to admit, these deeds are the deeds or an engineer

a SHAVING engineer (perhaps a new custom title!)

Click to expand...

I have checked with ABET and they are still working on the accreditation criteria for degrees in Shaving Engineering. I think Monkeyboy will make a great Professor of Shaving Engineering.

I'm still very much a rookie, but it seems one can tell the right angle by sound. I love to hear the blade cutting through those whiskers. Was never quite like that with Mach III.

Still this 45 degree handle angle is a good tip!

Just wanted to say awesome photo . Oh, and what worked for me when I was first staring was to follow Mantic's advice and rest the top of the razor against my face and roll it down until I could feel the blade make contact. This is still pretty handy as I acquire more razors .

-mm

This is a good observation..

For a while now I have been increasing my blade angle and have been rewarded with a much better quality of shave. I used to stick with what I thought was a 30ish degree angle but found that by increasing the angle of the head, lowering the handle almost vertical, on the first, N-S pass made a smoother shave. The proof is in the pudding, as they say and I found that by increasing this angle the first pass took considerably more whiskers off than before and with no irritation. Same went for XTG and ATG where the handle of my HD was pointing straight up.

Good prep. goes without saying, but I think he has a valid point! Well done!!..

I actually just figured this out this morning, I did a search here on "blade angle" to find out more on the subject and found this to be only a couple days old.

I was getting… not very good shaves at all with the HD. I was looking into blade samplers, which I still think I will do, but I had been moving the angle around a bit before to try and get better and it seemed like where I was at was the sweet spot. If I tilted one way it was all guard, the other was the top of the razor with no blade

I noticed yesterday 1 little spot under my chin where it was smooth....'it must be the angle' I thought, since that part was smooth and nothing else changed

Today was different though, tilted it more toward the top and it worked, and worked well. Still not perfectly smooth, but much better. The only issue is I was used to using a little pressure due to my poor angle in the past so I had some neck irritation, I'll need to correct that tomorrow. I think this new angle + some blade experimentation could yield some good results