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WetShaving
This is a community of enthusiasts, hobbyists and artisans who enjoy a traditional wet shave: brush, soap, and safety or straight razor. We are a part of the WetShaving community found on Reddit, Discord, and IRC.
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Use [First Impressions] in the title if your experience with the product is limited.
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Use the [Review] in the title if you can provide comprehensive details with enough familiarity to answer follow-up questions.
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Disclose how the product being reviewed was acquired (e.g., PIF, loan, or purchase). If the product was provided to you directly by the maker or vendor free of charge or at a discount, you must disclose this fact even if the item will later be returned to the maker or vendor.
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December 21, 2023
Yesterday I used an MMOC Gen 1, which is widely reported as being not as smooth as Gen 2. I enjoyed yesterday's shave a lot more, but I think it has more to do with the blade. This shave was just straight up tuggy. I got through it and the result is very nice, but nobody likes a tuggy shave. I'll have to do a side-by-side with fresh blades to see if I can tell any difference.
The auto-post bot seems to have broken. I couldn't fix it on my end, so I submitted a bug report to the developer. Here's hoping it's an easy fix!
This always intrigues me. The difference between gen 1 and 2 are the blade bumps, which are there so that a then-brandnew spineless double-edged Micromatic blade would sit at the same angle as a classic GEM blade propped up by its spine. If you use a modern GEM blade, the blade bumps seem to do nothing, at least when I check mine, there is no wear spot on them after I move the blade sideways.
I have multiple gen 1 and gen 2 MMOCs and they all feel exactly the same, and as far as I can tell they are functionally the same.
This was my analysis, but I did it by observation rather than experiment. I have two Gen 2s. The first was a chromed one. I went looking for a Gen 1 and saw a gold-plated Gen 2 and could not resist. I was not about to buy a third MMOC so I did a hard look at the bumps on the Gen 2 relative to the spine of the blade and concluded that lack of bumps would make no difference. [ I only use my gold-plated MMOC. It has more character and is more photogenic. ]
I can attest to its photogenicity (photogeneity?) 📸🙂
You have more sense than I did when exploring the GEM rabbit hole. I've ended up having a brass gen 1, a brass gen 2 with djudicial engravings, a chromed gen 2 with "HOLD FLAT AGAINST FACE" engraved in the top cap, and I've PIFfed some MMOCs
Oh, I almost went there. Happening upon my gold-plated one reduced my urge for more. And then I "found" straight razor collecting. In that department, I have no sense whatsoever :)
Yeah, same😬
I'm running out of storage space, like for the soaps. But unlike soaps, straight razors don't get used up, so this problem won't solve itself...
I have an inexpensive machinist's chest like this one that I use for my knife collection. I'm looking for something similar to this that I can use for my straights.