BullGooseShaving and their own Asylum 17-4.....

Quick update, replacement razor arrived (perfect fit, etc.). The first shave was great. Very comfortable, efficient, no heat or red skin. I know, everyone says stuff like this when they get a new razor. But seriously, this is a great shaver and enjoyable to use. Now I have to find a reason not to buy the polished version as a “back up” haha.

I am getting fantastic shaves out of my razor!

I find the Asylum McMurphy uncomfortable to use due to the sharp corners on the baseplate.  As others have observed, it's an unfinished razor.  It simply shouldn't have been sold like this.  I doubt I'll use this razor again.

I find the Asylum McMurphy uncomfortable to use due to the sharp corners on the baseplate.  As others have observed, it's an unfinished razor.  It simply shouldn't have been sold like this.  I doubt I'll use this razor again.

I had a friend of mine that was a machinist tale a look at the pics I sent him. He sent this back to me:



Black areas are edges where they needed to be rounded slightly so they do not have an edge. the red areas were areas that just needed to be cleaned up so that the machine filings were cleared away. He recommended fine grit sandpaper, but being impatient, I went with medium grit hone for my hunting knives and very lightly with a DMT. Took me a couple of hours, but definitely not sharp like it originally came, and a very comfortable shaver. As I mentioned before, Bullgoose sold these as is because of customers requesting it. He got it straight from the machinist and did nothing to clean it up because it was meant to have gone to the polisher. If this was not what you were expecting, you should have waited for the polished version coming out in a couple of weeks.

Perhaps it should have been made a little clearer how rough they were going to be. I'm sure most people when they thought they were getting not polished ones but machine finish were expecting something along the lines of other machine finished razors that are sold especially this being at $225. How could anybody buying a machine finish razor have expected ones that look like these when they've never seen ones sold looking like this by anyone else before. Please correct me if I'm wrong and provide an example. My WSC razor machined by Yates and the machine finish, my Blackland machine finish titanium as well as my Blackland Vector machine finish are nothing like that. So if I was buying a machine finish one I would think they would be like those. To say it is what somebody should have expected I think is really going a little too far. Just my feelings on the subjects and I don't have a dog in the fight.

I absolutely agree that I would have been better off waiting for a polished razor, and that's what I would have done if the description for this one had been clearer.  There was nothing in the description that led me to believe that in this case, a machined finish meant it wasn't ready for use.  I also own a Blackland Dart, Blackland Saber, Blackland Titanium Blackbird, and WSC (Yates-made) Winning, all in machined finish.  For each of those, that meant there are visible machining marks, but the razor is delivered in an immediately usable condition with no further work needed.  Are there any razors out there that are sold in a machined finish where the user is expected to hand finish it before being able to use it?  I'm not aware of any.  At $225, I expect a machined finish to be a matter of aesthetics, not function.

Honestly, I suspect this was just an oversight on Phil's part.  After what he went through with the first round of 17-4s, I'm betting he had a sample go all the way through machining and polishing and tested it out before okaying the full run.  I'm guessing he didn't test it at the midway step between machining and polishing, and it probably just didn't occur to him that making the razors available at that point would be an issue.  I doubt he would have missed this if he'd tried one between machining and polishing.  He probably thought it would just be a less expensive option and available sooner.

Didn't Phil release a pic of the razor in the machined finish version before sending any out to those that wanted one?

To see people taking sand paper to a $225 razor to make it usable is hilarious.

Such is the depth of our mania.

The polished version is live now.