Thanks to
DanLaw I received samples of both Tatara and Tatra for evaluation. I am testing these blades as part of a larger series of blade evaluations. The Tatara blades are made of Swedish stainless steel wtih platinum coated edges. I believe the blades are made by Czech Blades in the Czech Republic, the same manufacturer that produces Tiger and Tatra blades. By the end of the year, I hope to have evaluated more than 40 different blades from a wide variety of manufacturers. I have completed the testing on 30 blades and will be continuing until sometime in December. You can find the comparisons results here:
https://damnfineshave.com/thread-rayclem...valuations
For those who have been following that thread you know that I have a tough, old-man, white beard and sensitive skin. I do the blade evaluations with a two-day beard to further challenge each blade. My goal is to achieve a near-BBS shave with zero irritation through the use of a four-pass shave: WTG, XTG, ATG, and clean-up pass with buffing. My objective is most easily achieved using blades that are very sharp and very smooth. I have used the same Karve C-plate SB razor for all evaluations. That is a mild-mid aggressive razor that can be used with a wide variety of blade sharpness levels.
I started my shave this morning with a Parker Premium Platinum blade in the razor on its 3rd use. After a few strokes, I replaced the blade with the Tatara. While the Parker blade easily sliced through my two-day beard, there was some resistance when using the Tatara blade just out of the wrapper. However, the blade became noticeably sharper during the 1st pass WTG. By the time I got to the 2nd pass XTG, there was no resistance. After the ATG pass, I had a DFS. However, since my goal is a near-BBS shave, I continued with my clean-up pass including ATG and XTG buffing strokes. I was able to achieve a near BBS-shave. I never push for a full BBS shave as my skin is just too sensitive. After the shave I splashed on witch hazel. I got minimal feedback indicating slight irritation from the shave, but nothing significant. I have tested some blades that are even smoother and will shave with zero irritation.
Based on the results of this shave I am rating the Tatara blades 4.5 out of 5 on sharpness. That means the blades are very sharp, but not super sharp. I rated the smoothness as 4.5 out of 5 which means the blades are very smooth, but not quite the smoothest.. That is a excellent result that places the Tatara blades in the company of Lord Silver Star, Personna Platinum Chrome (Germany), Derby Premium and Durablade 7 AM Hi Platinum.
I plan to use the Tatara blade again for Wednesday's shave. Since the blade seems to have gotten sharper during the 1st shave, I am expecting the 2nd shave to be as good, or even better than the 1st. The results will be updated to reflect the results of both shaves.
I would love to evaluate the durability of these blades, but I will leave that exercise for others. I have too many other blades to test before the end of the year.
After completing the 2nd shave with the Tatara blade, I will evaluate the Tatra Platinum blade. It is less than half the price of the Tatara blades, so if the performance is similar, it will be the better value. I have previously evaluated the Tiger Superior Stainless blade produced by Czech Blades and rated them as 4 sharpness, 4 smoothness. I can use the Tiger blades, but much prefer the extra sharpness and smoothness of the Tatara Platinum blades.