Blade angle

If you grew a full Van Dyke, you could probably shave on autopilot.

Seraphim said:

And, in my early experience, yes, a single three pass shave with a steep angle can severely degrade your edge in a single shave. A low angle shave will prolong your edge for a VERY long time.

I used to do extensive microscope investigations of before and after, etc etc. so I had empirical data, not just concepts about what was happening: scraping versus shaving.

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Craig, at what angle did the edge degradation begin? Lyn Abrams talks about a 30 degree angle as being optimum. I personally do 2 passes with flat angles but on the third pass usually ramp the angle up a little to around 30 degrees. Would your empirical data show 30 degrees as scraping rather than shaving?

Cheers, George

A true 30 degree angle would be kinda steep. I always reckon the proper angle for most shaving to be where the gap between spine and face equals the thickness of the spine. Assuming a 16 degree bevel angle, that would be a shave angle of 24 degrees. 16, plus half of that for the center axis of the blade. A razor with a heavier bevel angle would of course throw a monkey wrench into this and a 20 degree ZY would put you at a 30 degree shave angle if you used this method, so you would want to cheat a little and go a little flatter than that.

For especially sharp blades or for going ATG, you will want to go still flatter. Or for very sensitive skin, maybe.