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WetShaving
720 readers
10 users here now
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.
New subscribers welcome!
Please visit our wiki, which is always and forever a work in progress.
🪒 Check out these alternative front-ends for this server:
https://gem.wetshaving.social/ - a nice modern interface
https://old.wetshaving.social/ - designed to look like old.reddit.com
Our sister Mastodon instance is https://wetshaving.social/.
🪒 Track the uptime of our various services here:
https://uptime.splettnet.com/status/wetshaving
🪒 Community Rules
Rule 1 - Behaviour and Etiquette
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Be Respectful. Do not bully, flame, or harass others.
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Malicious comments are not allowed but heated discussion and salty banter is okay.
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Low effort replies and complaints about content will be removed.
Rule 2 - Content Guidelines
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Mail Calls, Simple Questions, and SOTD posts belong in the recurring weekly threads.
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Posts must have sufficient content to generate a meaningful discussion.
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Images, links, or videos must include additional text that summarizes the topic.
Rule 3 - Reviews and Disclosure
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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.
Rule 4 - Advertising
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Vendors are to keep marketing within the biweekly Deals/New Products threads.
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Non-vendors may post topics about products if it will foster a compelling discussion.
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Do not solicit donations or share fundraisers without mod approval.
Rule 5 - Inappropriate Content
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All NSFW/L content must request mod approval and be flaired appropriately.
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Non-shaving related NSFW/L content is not allowed.
Rule 10 - Moderator Discretion
- The rules may not apply perfectly to every situation. The mods have final discretion.
founded 1 year ago
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I think project Moarteen has made me impatient and when I found a new Böker 14er at a shockingly high discount, I cracked and ordered this beauty.
I've been playing with the idea of buying one for close to two years, but at its regular price of €350+ it's quite the indulgence for me, especially since I prefer utilitarian design over lavish decorations. Function over form.
Further, it's this in-between level of lavish. Yes, it's goldwashed, but a bit sloppily, yes, it has a decorated face and spine, but it's cheap laser engraving. It's the Trump brand kind of luxury. Shiny on the outside, but only at first glance. However: every Böker I've ever tried was just fantastic quality work where it counts: perfect geometry with no wobble and perfectly even bevels, best-in-class jimping (which sounds a bit funny to me every time I mention it, but it makes the shanks just so damn ergonomic, clear straight lines in the entire geometry, without imperfections ground and filed away and polished over like Henckels, Filarmónicas, W&B, etc, (not that this last bit matters for shave quality, but I appreciate attention to such details, and it gives me confidence that the manufacturer has the right priorities).
Anyway, enough rationalisation of my impulse buy. I cracked and this pretty goldwashed modern 14 is the result:
I hadn't seen on the pictures that the scales are actually dark blurple, rather than black and I like it a lot. Note that the goldwash is uneven around the shank and even missing on a spot under the "14". The shiny decorated face and the little tree inlay in the scales look even better in person, but I didn't have the patience to fiddle with the photo setup to capture them right.
The shank shows what I mean when I say that Böker has the best geometric tolerances among all mass-producing straight razor manufacturers I know: The spine and tail are rounded for comfort, but the curvature flows into the perfectly rectangular cross section of the shank that makes Brad Maggard get all dreamy saying "there's just this nice, big, flat spot for you to put your thumb and fingers on". The transition is perfectly symmetric viewed from the top (should have taken that picture too, but oh well). You can already kinda see it in this picture, but the jimping is perfectly regular on both the top and bottom of the shank.
Here's a better view on it:
See it? Isn't that just the nicest grip you've ever seen on a mass-produced razor? BTW, It's the same quality on my vintage Böker S.S. Paris wins which I described in some details during last year's TabOKtoberfest, the pretty Abalone, and on VisceralWatch's Böker that I test-shaved recently. The QA in this company seems consistently good where it counts (i.e., not the goldwash 😅).
The spine is also prettily decorated similarly to a 472/472½ Friodur. Nice if you're into that kinda thing.
Finally, it wouldn't be a fancy Böker without the deadly point 💀
I'm looking forward to giving this new 14 a wirl. I'm also curious about the factory edge on this.
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