Singing the Gillette Single Ring Old Type Blues.

OK, I've owned literally 4 OT/Single Rings. I find the #102 cap to be the smoothest shaver, but that's relative.

Dang these things are efficient, but are very difficult to use. I've tried shims, on top of and under the blade; I've been shimless, tried Feathers and Polsilver SI's, plus Gillette 7:00 yellows; steep angle and shallow angle; and I've tried stock, bulldog, Cadet, and even Razorock Stainless Slant handles. No matter the combo, I'm BBS but man is the shave difficult. If I'm not spot on with pressure and angle (especially angle), I get irritation and weepers. My technique is good enough that I don't get weepers with any other razor.

With that in the back of my mind and a lazy Sunday in front of me, I played with my razors. I loaded blades in each specimen to check blade gap, etc when I noticed that each one of them exhibited some kind of blade warp! See below:

I know I have bent teeth, but I think either the baseplate or top cap is slightly warped, causing curvature in the middle of the blade towards the cap. The other three also have similar blade curvatures, wavy blades, or some other imperfection. Is this common to Old Types? Could it be the cause of my irritation?

For reference: I find the NEW's just as difficult to use, but much less effective. I LOVE my Senator and Cadet OC's, but sold a Barbasol FH because it did not shave well for me.

EDIT: Mods fixed misspelling in the title, thanks!

The gap between the blade and the combs looks fine to me, but I'm on Tapa and I might be missing something.

Many people have issues with the Single Rings, try a steeper angle. Unlike what many people think, it works well with the OT.
And NEWs ... YMMV I guess .... I find them very user friendly, extremely smooth and efficient. But these IME at least, require very shallow angles.

Wow, so long as that's not barrel distortion of the lens it looks for all the world like the blade bows upward in the middle. I would not want to shave with that. I have a couple of OT's, one of them there's no way I would shave with because the cap is gapped noticeably at one end. The other two look okay but I think I would do what you did and examine them very closely before road testing them.

I've got a 1919 Gillette Bulldog like this. It's a shame too. When I look at it on either side it frowns at me. Every time I use it I get bloody. I don't know what causes the warping, but it renders the razor almost useless.

I shaved with my single ring today.

Great shave but I still had some weepers.

I think the blades of that era were thicker or stiffer.

Interesting. Nice research. I look forward to some knowledgeable replies.

Btw ... I still don't see anything terribly wrong with the razor, but I'm not saying it's your fault either, David. [emoji12]

Probably tomorrow I'll take similar pictures of a couple of Single Rings to compare.

Most razors aren't perfect, especially these very old ones. Many razors have these minor flaws and most people aren't even aware.

Unfortunately the Old Type 102 heads were particularly susceptible to damage, and by now most will have been dropped at least once. The Gillette company knew about this problem, and tried to alleviate it with the heavier construction of the 102A cap. However they could still be damaged: click on this image to read the whole article from the Gillette Blade from May 1918.



Customer efforts aside, they kept working on the design and the the New Improved featured even heavier construction. When the NEW came out they promoted its robust construction in ads: https://books.google.com/books?id=q-MDAAAAMBAJ&pg=RA1-PA160.

nuclearblast said:

Btw ... I still don't see anything terribly wrong with the razor, but I'm not saying it's your fault either, David. [emoji12]

Probably tomorrow I'll take similar pictures of a couple of Single Rings to compare.

Most razors aren't perfect, especially these very old ones. Many razors have these minor flaws and most people aren't even aware.

Click to expand...

Edgar, its more noticable in person, the pic doesn't show as well as I'd hoped. I wonder if Goodwill Razors also suffer from "blade bow."

Hi,

My Grandfather's thin cap 102 does not have a bow to the blade like that. Maybe he never dropped it. I know I have not. I found one shim between the top cap and the blade greatly reduced the chance of my making weepers with it.

I do not use it everyday, though. My daily is a Fasan doubleslsant, which gives me DFS in two passes. I use the OT on days when I need to push back the onset of the shadow, and the use it for a third pass for BBS. I do this usually on Thursdays when I have an early evening meeting. On other days, it is not worth the effort for the extra couple hours BBS buys me.

The OT is the only razor I can obtain DFS with these days. I used to use a Red Tip, and later a collection of NEWs, for this. But as my whiskers became tougher over the (now up to 39) years of shaving, the OT became the only razor which will get me to BBS.

Still, I find that I must really concentrate on a light touch and a slow speed with the OT. I have to use it in the same manner I use a straight razor. Or, it will bite.

Stan

I have a few like this as well. Try using the Gillette Way method and back off the knob slightly until the frown or smile remedies itself but the blade still has some curvature to it. This actually turned razors that were uncomfortable at best into much more useful shaving tools.

Here's a couple of Single Rings. None of the 4 sides looks perfect ... but the shaves are great.




Brent's suggestion is a good one, even though you say you already tried shims, etc ... Have you tried loosening the knob as seen here?

View attachment 553719

This morning, I mixed up some caps and baseplates until I found the combination with the least amount of blade distortion as seen below (please excuse the wayward eyelash).

There is very slight blade distortion on the left side, but the difference in shave comfort between this combo and the 1908 Single Ring pictured in the first post was noticeable. To my surprise, the razor seems slightly less efficient compared to the 1908, but I'll trade more comfort for slightly less efficiency here. I will use this "Frankencombo" in my regular rotation.

The above combination includes a #102A cap. Both my #102 caps, when swapped around, distorted the blade to some degree.

Chronarch said:

I have a few like this as well. Try using the Gillette Way method and back off the knob slightly until the frown or smile remedies itself but the blade still has some curvature to it. This actually turned razors that were uncomfortable at best into much more useful shaving tools.

Click to expand...

Thank you, Brent. Do you use a shim?

nuclearblast said:

Here's a couple of Single Rings. None of the 4 sides looks perfect ... but the shaves are great.

View attachment 553718

Click to expand...

Edgar, the bottom left looks the most distorted. Do they all shave equally well?

nuclearblast said:

Here's a couple of Single Rings. None of the 4 sides looks perfect ... but the shaves are great.

View attachment 553718

The bottom left looks the most distorted. Do they all shave equally well?

Click to expand...

Yup, I find them equally smooth and efficient. However, they're not shimmed and the razors are fully tightened. Usually I shave with one or two shims and I unscrew the knob a little bit as per Gillette's instructions, but not always!

I've shaved without shims and fully tightened razors and the shaves are still enjoyable, although I prefer them shimmed because it's a more efficient shave.

Yep, I've got it too on my old single rings, I mostly have one good side and one "wavy" side.
I have one that's pretty solid, both sides are good, I double shim it and the shaves are outstanding. The double shim seemed to help the way the blade sits.

I also double shim my merkur 11c. I started doing this because I wanted to try and copy the merkur HD design, and I found that I really like the shaves when I double shim my razors, it's a personal thing, I love the 11C, daily shaver.

I have not tried shimming any of my razors. I only discovered this frown/wavy blade fix a few weeks ago when I was using a New Improved razor. It had a slight frown as well and gave me a few weepers when fully tightened. I backed off the knob a little bit until the frown went away and the next shave was dramatically improved. I am assuming it could do the same for the Old Types. The wavy blade syndrome is not necessarily always caused by a bent cap either. If you look real close you sometimes see that the leading edges of the caps sometimes do not have a uniform thickness. I will take some pics tonight of my razors fully tightened and then with the knob backed off. The difference is very apparent.

KQY61 said:

But as my whiskers became tougher over the (now up to 39) years of shaving, the OT became the only razor which will get me to BBS.

Still, I find that I must really concentrate on a light touch and a slow speed with the OT. I have to use it in the same manner I use a straight razor. Or, it will bite.

Stan

Click to expand...

Tungsten wire grey beards is something that the younger members have yet to experience Stan. I agree with using it like a straight (with training wheels?? ).

TristanLudlow said:

I double shim it and the shaves are outstanding. The double shim seemed to help the way the blade sits.

Click to expand...

+1 on this Tristan. Two shims for a Single Ring, one for a NEW.

Cheers, George

To be fair, I have always been very critical of my old vintage single rings that I bought, a lot of them did have slightly damaged caps, causing a "wavy blade" / weird blade curvature.

However I've only now taken a look at some modern made razors that I own, and some of those seem to have the same problem, I've never noticed, making the blade wavy/weird curvature and not perfectly straight.
Huh

Went back to the original 1908 SR this morning, double shimmed and fully tightened. Blade distortion is noticeably reduced and my shave was better than it was shimless, but just as effective.

I removed one shim after the shave. Tightened all the way, there is some blade distortion, but if I loosen the knob about 1/32 of a turn, the distortion reduces and I can see how the blade gap changes. I'll use the single shimmed, slightly loosened SR tomorrow and see how it goes.

Bottom line is the Single Ring is one very efficient tool, requiring a deft hand. It's fun learning to use this razor; I imagine it's like learning to drive a Model T with all the manual adjustments necessary to make it work well.

PS I used Williams Mug Soap and Pinaud Clubman aftershave, making this a retro shave!