Troubleshooting My Gillette Adjustable

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!

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

...

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