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Post by mjclark on Mar 28, 2015 9:06:05 GMT -6
Interesting. I would have liked to use a fresh Valet blade in it's day. Marcus, when you're done could you rank them maybe 10 to 1 ? Ten being the best and 1 being worst? Or whatever ranking you choose of course. For sure a ranking is a very good idea! I'm going to add a NOS Micromatic blade and a Personna industrial blade just for the sake of completion, then do a Phase 2 shave off between the blades that seemed most similar and then I'll do a performance rating.
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Post by drumzalot on Mar 28, 2015 16:50:34 GMT -6
Marcus, I have just four Gem Blue Stars left in their vault. Thinking about your thread, I decided to look at the year that they were manufactured. My Blue Stars are both sharp and smooth, they beat out all of my ASR SE blades. My dwindling Gem Blue Stars were made in 2009! So mine are a year older then yours and are very smooth and sharp!
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Post by drumzalot on Mar 28, 2015 18:05:13 GMT -6
Here is a pic of my (2009) Gem Blue Stars they are very smooth & sharp. These are my top SE blades.
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Post by mjclark on Mar 29, 2015 1:21:22 GMT -6
Marcus, I have just four Gem Blue Stars left in their vault. Thinking about your thread, I decided to look at the year that they were manufactured. My Blue Stars are both sharp and smooth, they beat out all of my ASR SE blades. My dwindling Gem Blue Stars were made in 2009! So mine are a year older then yours and are very smooth and sharp! Great stuff Joe! I wonder what year they went bad? Also I hope we don't drive up the price of old stock Blue Stars...
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Post by mjclark on Mar 30, 2015 3:33:58 GMT -6
Round 7: NOS Valet vs NOS GEM Micromatic Definitely the rumble in the jungle - both blades are absolutely superb. The GEM Micromatic was the first SE blade with the central hole to make it exclusively compatible with the new Micromatic razor, so that places us firmly in the 1930's. And this blade is sharp sharp sharp...sharp. Sharp as the Valet and very very smooth too, but in the same stealthy way as the 2008 Blue Stars. Whereas with the Valet you can feel intensely the incredible slicing power of the blade, the Micromatic blade is so effortlessly smooth that, apart from the sound of buttering toast, you might think it wasn't there at all. Man, what a blade!
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Post by mjclark on Mar 30, 2015 12:32:23 GMT -6
Round 8: NOS GEM Micromatic vs Personna Industrial No contest! Obviously the industrial blade wouldn't be anybody's first choice but it acquitted itself remarkably well. It's the least sharp blade of all them but considerably smoother than both the CVS and the Feather Seikan. At £5 for 100 blades and a decent shave these might be worth considering... ...so at the end of Phase One, here's how the blades rank on their first shave: 1st - NOS GEM Micromatic 2nd - NOS Valet 3rd - GEM Blue Star 2008 4th - PAL Treet GEM Blue Star 2014 7th CVS 8th Personna Industrial 9th Feather Seikan Fot Phase Two we'll switch it up to the OCMM, MWF and a Virginia Sheng Pur Tech and directly compare some of the blades which felt similar in Phase One...
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ShadowsDad
Gem Star
None boring shaver!!
"It's not the bow, it's the Indian"
Posts: 4,534
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Post by ShadowsDad on Mar 30, 2015 12:39:18 GMT -6
I'm surprised the industrial blade shaved at all.
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Post by fram773 on Mar 30, 2015 13:01:05 GMT -6
I'm surprised the industrial blade shaved at all. If you take a look at the reviews on Amazon you will find that some use them successfully.
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ShadowsDad
Gem Star
None boring shaver!!
"It's not the bow, it's the Indian"
Posts: 4,534
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Post by ShadowsDad on Mar 30, 2015 17:25:13 GMT -6
I'm basing it on my experience with them. If I had to use them I'd grow a beard.
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Post by mjclark on Apr 3, 2015 15:42:15 GMT -6
Phase Two - Round 9: PAL Blue (2) vs Treet (2) For Phase Two we've changed the set up to OCMM, MWF and Pur Tech Synthetic. Not very scientific, I know, but a whole lot of fun On their first shaves the PAL and Treet were indistinguishable but on their second shaves the Treet is clearly superior. The PAL gave a good shave similar to the first but with a slight degradation in sharpness, whereas the Treet had settled in for a very nice shave indeed which was both sharper and smoother than the PAL.
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Post by mjclark on Apr 5, 2015 15:08:16 GMT -6
Round 10: Treet (2) vs Blue Star 2014 (2) On its second shave the Blue Star 2014 was superb, both sharper and smoother than the Treet. It felt close to the Blue Star 2008 and NOS Micromatic blades on their first shaves and streets ahead of the others. It's unclear what's going on here - on their first shaves the PAL, Treet and Blue Star 2014 were indistinguishable from each other and all inferior to the Blue Star 2008, but on their second shaves the Blue Star 2014 was much nicer than the Treet which itself was much nicer than the PAL. Perhaps these are all the same blade with different coatings which degrade at different rates? As we've said before, it seems ridiculous that ASR would make so many different varieties of trifaceted carbon SE blades in the same factory when they're sold to such a small niche market. Yet on their second shaves these blades are performing VERY differently from each other.
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Post by fram773 on Apr 5, 2015 16:17:03 GMT -6
The Treet is awful and unshaveable for me. They at like shaving with a broken beer bottle. I've finally gotten to trying the Blue Stars (black dispenser) and they're not near as good as the stainless PTFE GEMs but they are adequate. They gave me two good shaves with drying and oiling.
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Post by mjclark on Apr 5, 2015 18:13:11 GMT -6
The Treet is awful and unshaveable for me. They at like shaving with a broken beer bottle. I've finally gotten to trying the Blue Stars (black dispenser) and they're not near as good as the stainless PTFE GEMs but they are adequate. They gave me two good shaves with drying and oiling. What year are your Blue Stars? It's YMMV (I can't get a pleasant shave at all from the Stainless until the third shave) but I wonder if the RELATIVE performance of the blades for you would be the same as I'm finding eg would you find the Treets superior to the PALs or a marked difference between 2008 and 2014 Blue Stars?
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Post by fram773 on Apr 6, 2015 9:52:47 GMT -6
The Treet is awful and unshaveable for me. They at like shaving with a broken beer bottle. I've finally gotten to trying the Blue Stars (black dispenser) and they're not near as good as the stainless PTFE GEMs but they are adequate. They gave me two good shaves with drying and oiling. What year are your Blue Stars? It's YMMV (I can't get a pleasant shave at all from the Stainless until the third shave) but I wonder if the RELATIVE performance of the blades for you would be the same as I'm finding eg would you find the Treets superior to the PALs or a marked difference between 2008 and 2014 Blue Stars? 2009. I was surprised by the Treets today. I had previously only tried them in the ER 1924, MMOC, GEM Junior, and today I loaded one in a Push Button and I was surprised they where a completely different blade with this razor! This is the razor I used the (just acquired) Blue Stars in, so it is possible the Blue Stars may be horrible under different conditions. In the PB, the Treets where not as sharp as the Blue Stars but they where smoother. A marked improvement. I wonder how the Treets in the black dispenser compare.
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Post by mjclark on Apr 7, 2015 0:39:01 GMT -6
Round 11: Blue Star 2014 (2) vs Blue Star 2008 (2) The second shave from the Blue Star 2008 was as lovely as the first and perhaps slightly sharper but slightly rougher than the Blue Star 2014. Maybe not though - the two different Blue Stars are so similar on their second shaves (and much better than the PAL and Treet) yet were so different on their first outing. I could easily believe that they are the same blade but perhaps coated or finished differently. And thanks fram - it's interesting to hear how you find the Blue Star 2009s and also the way the Treet improved in the PB. My Treet also improved and the PAL got worse when moving from ER 1912 to OCMM. Maybe it's just the blades settling in/degrading or maybe it is razor geometry...
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