Perfect shave with new Standard Razor

UPDATE: I was wrong about the handle: the threaded stud is in fact threaded on both ends: it can be screwed out of the cap and also screwed out of the handle. When the stud is left in the cap, unscrewing the handle from it, the Standard handle can easily be swapped with other razor handles: the tapped part is a standard size. I will be putting a little LocTite on the threads that go into the cap so that the stud will, in effect, become part of the cap, as is traditional.

An absolutely perfect BBS result—and a very pleasant shave—with my new Standard Razor. I do think that’s an odd name for the product: I like to use “standard” to refer to… well, standards, and this razor has some distinctive non-standard features.

But let us begin at the beginning. After the usual pre-shave beard wash at the sink, I worked up an instant lather from the Los Angeles Shaving Soap Company’s Vanilla/Eucalyptus/Mint shaving soap, and I do like the fragrance. (Vanilla—that pretty much brings me in). The lather was  quite good—dense and admirable—and I used the Astra Superior Platinum blade that came with the razor.

Aside: At one time the consensus was that one should never use the blade shipped with this razor. This was based on an assumption that the loose blade would become terribly damaged in shipment. That never made much sense to me, and with an increasing number of razors accompanied by a pack of blades, the idea seems to have withered: no one wants to throw away a full pack, and if blades are not protected in the pack, what’s the point of ordering them on-line? They should be purchased then directly at the plant, as they come off the assembly line, to avoid damage. But we don’t do that because in fact wrapped blades are pretty secure against damage.

I think what was happening is this: in those days, the Merkur 34C was the overwhelming choice of a new razor. (Secondhand/vintage razors do not come with a complimentary blade, so the issue arises only for new razors.) And indeed many found that the loose blade included gave a terrible shave. The simple explanation, however, is not that the blade was damaged, it’s that Merkur blades work well for very few. The majority of shavers find Merkur blades pretty bad in shaving performance.

It was, I believe, a hasty generalization from the poor performance of Merkur blades for most shavers . /aside

I did three passes with no problems at all and achieved a perfect BBS result. A splash of Stetson Sierra, and the weekend’s in sight.

Now, some comments on the non-standard aspects of the razor.

First, it’s made of aluminum. Because aluminum is a superior heat conductor, I worried that the razor would feel hot on my face after being rinsed in hot water. Not so: it feels no different than any of my other razors. Theory crumbles beneath the weight of experience.

Second, the head is slightly wider so that you do not feel the ends of the blade protruding from the head. I like this treatment since my fingertips don’t get gouged when I change the blade (as with three-piece razors where the ends of the blade protrude: the Gillette NEW, the Sodial, et al.). Like most (all?) of the iKon razors, the ends of the head are perfectly smooth even when the razor’s loaded with a blade. (I think the original idea was to let the blade’s ends protrude to make it easier to remove the blade from the cap, but blade removal really isn’t a problem with the wider head, and the feel when assembling or disassembling the razor is much improved without the blade’s ends sticking out.)

Third, the handle is a smooth rod with no finial knob of any sort. Almost all razor handles end with some sort of knob, which proves quite useful in the ATG pass. When I took the razor from the package, the smoothness initially worried me: it seemed smoother, because of its very fine texture, than a polished handle (e.g., the Edwin Jagger chrome-plated razor, whose handle is smooth and polished—the Standard handle is smooth with a very slight texture that makes it feel slipperier than the EJ in the grip of a dry hand). But in fact the handle’s smoothness did not turn out to be a problem: it was easy to hold once wet, and I never noticed any slipperiness during the shave. If it had turned out to be slippery, it wouldn’t really be a problem: brushing one’s wet fingers over an alum block provides a totally secure grip.

And the lack of a terminating knob on the handle also proved to be no problem in practice. Certainly the handle had a different feel from the typical razor handle—dare I say it had a nonstandard feel?—but it was easy to grip throughout the shave, including the ATG pass.

It’s worth noting that my worries (i.e., expectations regarding the experience) were groundless. I’ve learned that that is often the case with expectations, good or bad, regarding future experiences.

The fourth non-standard feature has a bit more impact. One advantage of the three-piece design (in addition to its simplicity and sturdiness) is that you can swap handles from one three-piece razor to another. Indeed, some vendors sell razor handles separately:

• Above the Tie
• Elite Razors
• iKon
• Maggard Razors (hollow handle can be filled with small weights by unscrewing butt cap)
• Pens of the Forest
• Tradere
• UFO Razor Handles
• Weber

And, of course, you can use the handle from any three-piece razor—e.g., a Gillette Tech or NEW or whatever—except with the Standard Razor, which has a nonstandard handle attachment:

The standard (small-s) way to attach the handle is that the cap has a threaded center stud that extends through a hole in the baseplate, and the handle is tapped with matching threads. NoHelmet, of Wicked_Edge, notes:

Two different thread pitches are the most common [for razor handles]. They are 10-32 (US) and M5x.8 (Metric). If the handle is tapped to M5, practically any head will work with it. This isn’t always true when trying to use a 10-32 (such as all vintage Gillettes) handle on a newer M5 head. The pitches are very similar, but M5 is ever so slightly larger.

As you can see, in the so-called Standard Razor, the threaded stud extends from the handle, not the cap, and the diameter of that stud is significantly smaller than is standard among three-piece razors. [WRONG, wrong, wrong: the threaded stud is a separate piece that is threaded on both ends and can also be unscrewed from the handle—and at that point, any standard (small-s) razor handle can be used with the Standard. I only recently learned this, and I will use some LocTite on the threads that go into the cap so the stud will become permanently attached to the cap, making the handle completely interchangeable with other razor handles. 12 Aug 2014. – LG]

Regarding the threaded stud: before receiving the razor, I had concerns about threaded aluminum parts (cf. the Mühle aluminum travel brushes—I recommend the nickel-plated brass version since the aluminum threads of the others tend to strip over time). But in the Standard handle the threaded stud is not aluminum: it appears to be stainless steel (which is why it can be of a small diameter and still be strong). The tapped stud in the cap appears to be aluminum, but this aluminum alloy seems to be quite strong—aircraft aluminum—and I do not foresee any problems at all with the threaded connection: another worry proved baseless in practice. [Someone pointed out that aluminum-on-aluminum threads are prone to galling. -LG]

It works perfectly well, but you are not going to use this handle in another razor, nor another razor’s handle with this head. (This discussion illustrates why calling the entire razor a “handle” is confusing—and what do those who call the razor a “handle” call the handle?  /pet peeve)

The fit, finish, and workmanship is excellent throughout. Although the razor is sold at StandardRazors.com, I did note that my order acknowledgement came from Associated-Works.com, “a Los Angeles-based Product Design Consultancy.” That doubtless accounts for the slick, minimalist design (and the non-standard aspects of the razor).

Overall, I would rate it as an excellent razor, with quality like that of the Weber or other premium razors, but going a somewhat different direction.

UPDATE: One reader wrote to suggest that the exposed blade tabs (the part of the DE blade that protrudes from the end of razors such as the Edwin Jagger, Gillette NEW, and the like) actually serve a function beyond facilitating blade removal. He points out:

[Having the blade tabs exposed] allows for minor adjustments of the blade which I find necessary with DE blades and razors.  I find the iKon slant really difficult to load the blade straight, takes me 3-5 times usually, exposed blade tabs would make this so much easier just to wiggle the blade into the right space.  The only design where I find the blade tabs covered to be useful is when the top cap has the blade-holding tabs in the corner like the OSS and Feather AS-D2.

I find that not all DE blades are 100% exactly the same, there are some slight variations that sometimes require the blade to be wiggled or adjusted slightly.  Notice how small the posts on the iKon slant are versus the slots in the DE blade.