I've been thinking about how a newbie can find the grain patterns easily without using a live blade to play with and this might work for some.
Take a CC or plastic gift card and lay it flat against your face. Now start lifting the card and start moving it slowly until you feel the edge of the plastic come into contact with your beard. This is going to be the same technique your going to use to find the edge of the blade.
Move it so the edge is only making contact with your hairs and not scraping against your skin. This is just about the amount of pressure, (or lack of pressure) your going to want to apply to your razor when you go for the real thing.
At no time do you want to feel it scraping or coming into contact with your skin, at all!
Start moving the plastic edge around your face, and feel when the edge moves easily without hardly any sound or resistance. Your probably moving with the grain in that section. If there's noteable drag and resistance and more noise, your probably moving against the grain at that point and make note of these areas.
Using the edge, discover the other areas that are wtg, xtg and atg and which direction you have to move the plastic edge to find wtg.
I'm not sure how well this will work out for most, but it seems to me to be a lot less painful method than discovery with a live blade would be and might give you a good idea about how to keep the edge of the blade off your skin, that's the bad thing. Just keeping the blade floating off your skin and coming into contact with only the hairs, that's the good thing. Just some early morning musings and as always, YMMV.
Take a CC or plastic gift card and lay it flat against your face. Now start lifting the card and start moving it slowly until you feel the edge of the plastic come into contact with your beard. This is going to be the same technique your going to use to find the edge of the blade.
Move it so the edge is only making contact with your hairs and not scraping against your skin. This is just about the amount of pressure, (or lack of pressure) your going to want to apply to your razor when you go for the real thing.
At no time do you want to feel it scraping or coming into contact with your skin, at all!
Start moving the plastic edge around your face, and feel when the edge moves easily without hardly any sound or resistance. Your probably moving with the grain in that section. If there's noteable drag and resistance and more noise, your probably moving against the grain at that point and make note of these areas.
Using the edge, discover the other areas that are wtg, xtg and atg and which direction you have to move the plastic edge to find wtg.
I'm not sure how well this will work out for most, but it seems to me to be a lot less painful method than discovery with a live blade would be and might give you a good idea about how to keep the edge of the blade off your skin, that's the bad thing. Just keeping the blade floating off your skin and coming into contact with only the hairs, that's the good thing. Just some early morning musings and as always, YMMV.