Merkur 39C Slant Bar Review

I've been hooked on traditional wetshaving for over a year now and finally feel qualified to give a review of my latest toy, the Merkur 39C long-handled slant bar razor. It's shown above with the box it came in.

Here is the Merkur 39C next to the Merkur 23C. The 23C is a double-edged razor that's ideal for beginners, with a nice long handle, mild shave and (relatively) light weight. By comparison, the 39C has a seriously hefty handle and slanted bar with a much wider blade gap. If the 23C feels about the same weight as a fork or spoon, the 39C is like a solid-handled butter knife (although more balanced).

Here's another look at the Merkur 39C slant. Just look at that handle. The barber pole style knurling is deeper than it looks and gives a very tactile grip. The heavy weight coupled with the more efficient slicing effect of the slant bar means you really can let the razor do the work. It's also the reason this razor is known as "the sledgehammer."

Here's a better image of the blade... and part of my fingerprint on the mirror chrome finish. Like all double edge razors the cap that sits on top the blade bends it into a crescent, but in this case the entire safety bar has a twist. The gap between the safety bar and the blade is huge compared to the 23C. The bar also has a toothed design and the cap has a series of indentations making a wavy shape as well. These features give a very close shave and also mean that lather and whiskers are kept away from the blade for longer, so you can take longer shaving passes before cleaning off your razor, if you choose. Basically there is more space for the lather to flow away from the blade.

Above is a look at the Merkur 39C razor disassembled. The long threaded rod on the cap goes through the blade, which is held relatively square by the lugs on the bottom of the cap. The knob at the end of the handle has a female-threaded hole and is held in place by a simple spring retaining ring. To tighten the cap or remove the blade you just unscrew the knob and the cap comes off, you do not have to remove the knob.

Another look at the cap. The edge of it is really quite thin. You can just make out the forge marks. The underside is still chrome plated, just not mirror polished.

Here's one way to load the blade into a Merkur 39C. This is how Merkur recommends blades be loaded. Place the cap flat side down on your counter, drop a fresh blade over the lugs and center rod, and screw the handle on. This usually works okay, but I've found sometimes the blade is slightly out of alignment, with more of the blade exposed on one side of the head than the other.

Here's another method for loading the blade into the 39C that I've found works better. If you pick up the cap and squeeze the ends of the blade lightly while pushing up on the cap, you cause the blade to flex upward and form to the shape of the cap. From here it's easy to screw in the handle and ensure the blade is evenly exposed on both sides of the head.

Another look at the fit and finish when disassembled. You can see that the safety bar and handle are actually two pieces with a joint where they meet. While you could probably make a much more appealing version by machining the whole thing out of stainless, this is probably a lot more cost effective.

A look at one side of the head. You can barely see the blade arched up under the cap. Because this twisted head is obviously asymmetrical, at first glance you might think it's defective. But it's actually supposed to be like that.

Okay, enough with the eye candy. You're probably wondering how this bad boy shaves. The answer is that it's the best shave I've ever had. I found that I didn't need to make any adjustments to my technique to avoid cutting myself, and frankly everyone had me scared with the whole "not for beginners" thing. The honest answer is that this tool is no more dangerous than any other razor if you have good technique. While it excels at busting through multiple days of growth, it also lets you get a ridiculously close shave with minimal irritation. The twisted head naturally forces more of the blade to contact each whisker, slicing through it more efficiently than if it had contacted the hair straight on. Or if you've heard of or tried the "Gillette Slide" technique, where you use an ordinary double edge razor and shave in a diagonal line across your face while keeping the handle straight up and down, the effect is the same.

The bottom line is: if you want the last razor you'll ever need, with a close, comfortable shave that's aggressive enough to take down two or three days worth of growth in a single pass, the Merkur 39C slant bar is the razor for you. Plus, there's a serious macho factor involved. You can tell everyone you shave with a sledgehammer. What's cooler than that?

Book Review: Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Anthony Bourdain’s autobiographical book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly delivers on its promise to give readers a glimpse behind the kitchen doors. It’s a work that jumps back and forth between conspiratorial chapters offering advice on all things cuisine, reveals the “secrets” of the restaurant industry, explains the process of running a kitchen, reflects on Bourdain’s checkered career, and shares anecdotal biographies of people who are clearly his favorites in the business. Kitchen Confidential is always irreverent, frequently funny, and covers most of the above topics with a compelling honesty, something that I imagine is a breath of fresh air within the sphere of chef-authored culinary literature.

However, like most of the people that populate its pages, Kitchen Confidential is not without a few minor faults. Towards the end of the book, there are a handful of obvious punctuation and editing errors, and there are also some organizational issues: the chapters have obviously been shuffled out of the order they were written to maintain a reader’s interest, but I think the mixture of anecdotes, advice and autobiography is still jumbled enough to be inaccessible to some casual readers. The work is also absolutely stuffed with the names of famous cooking personalities and exotic French cooking terms that can be frustrating if you’re unfamiliar with them, but are thankfully easily glossed over by the casual reader.

Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of Kitchen Confidential is Bourdain’s explanations of what happens behind the scenes. He paints a vivid picture of the hornet’s nest that is his restaurant kitchen, obviously taking great pleasure in exposing all the gory details – from recurring episodes of vulgar, testosterone-charged banter and practical jokes to the sometimes sneaky cost-saving measures and food prep shortcuts. For example, your bread is likely recycled from a previous table, he says, but so what? You’re accepting the same contamination risk when you get on a subway or eat a rare steak.

Kitchen Confidential also contains plenty of practical advice that all readers can benefit from. I especially enjoyed Bourdain’s striking portrait of successful leadership. According to Bourdain, the chef is a dictator in charge of his own sovereign nation, and he will take no prisoners during the campaign to culinary excellence. He examines the chef’s need to hire superb employees based on merit and rule them with an iron fist for best results. It’s a pleasant contrast to the softened, friendly world full of easy money and second chances so often depicted in the modern media, and the lesson behind the bluster is that doing your best will pay off.

The text also openly acknowledges that anyone entertaining the idea of getting into the restaurant business or the culinary trades must be crazy, since 4 out of 5 restaurants fail financially and the kitchen is truly an awful place to work, even if you happen to really love food. Even Bourdain can’t deny that most of the delusional cooks and crazy grillmasters in his current and past kitchens couldn’t work anywhere else, and by the end of the book, it seems as though even he has left normal society behind and can’t really exist outside the kitchen anymore.

He also has an entire fascinating chapter devoted to what home chefs need to have and do differently if they want to cook like the real pros, not the as-seen-on-TV chefs. (I’ll give you a hint: shallots!) He reveals that the entire industry considers weekend diners second-class citizens, that chefs will serve anything they think they can get away with, and that you really want to go to a restaurant during the week for the best meals. And finally, behind all the crass kitchen antics and multilingual cursing, Bourdain concludes that simple ingredients prepared into no-frills “mother and grandmother” meals are the very best kind, practical advice that we all can take to heart.

While all the history, name-dropping and insider restaurant advice makes Kitchen Confidential an obvious must-read for anyone in the culinary world, it’s these sentimental little tidbits and tips from Anthony Bourdain’s inner self that make it a worthwhile adventure for the casual reader as well. If you don’t mind a few problems with pacing and a considerable amount of coarse language,Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly is an excellent read that I found instructive and inspiring.

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo

The Toyota Echo is ridiculously cheap to own. I’ve had my 2000 Toyota Echo sedan for more than two years without a single incident of anything going wrong. Check out a few online forums on the topic – the Echo is built like a tank where it counts, under the hood. There are numerous online examples of Echos going over 200,000 miles, and the Toyota Echo was one of Consumer Reports’ most reliable used cars back in the years following its appearance on the market.

Regular maintenance costs for the Echo are impressively low. Because the 1.5L engine is so small, it requires less coolant and motor oil than other vehicles. While an SUV or truck might require 6 quarts of oil, for example, the Echo requires just 3.9 quarts (when the filter is changed.) Of course, you’ll need to do your own maintenance to see these savings, otherwise your mechanic will charge you the “big car” price. Other elements are similarly downsized and less expensive. I recently purchased new Michelin Defender tires for it, and they were something like $114.00 a piece, totaling 460 bucks. A friend’s Buick Rendezvous required a larger tire that cost significantly more.

Also, since my Echo has so few options and components (no power locks or power windows, no cruise control, no automatic headlights or keyless entry, no sunroof, no turbocharger, etc) I think there are simply fewer things that can go wrong. So far reliability has been outstanding, although I understand there are a few known issues with the Mass Airflow Sensor (located above the engine air cleaner box) malfunctioning.

To put the icing on the cake, getting car insurance for a Toyota Echo is cheap, cheap, cheap! I recently chose to drop comprehensive and collision coverage on it, since it is an older car that doesn’t have much cash value, but to give you some idea, a 500 deductible for comprehensive & collision insurance cost about $12.00 per month, and liability insurance was about $20.00 per month. That’s peanuts compared to most, but keep in mind I’m in the upper Midwest, one of the cheapest places in the US to get auto insurance. If only my state gave a registration discount for efficient cars!

So as you can see I don’t have a lot of numbers to throw around regarding the true cost to own a Toyota Echo, but I can confidently say that it is less expensive than your average car. Top-notch reliability, low routine maintenance costs, inexpensive to insure, and excellent fuel economy to boot… it all adds up to a pretty nice package with relatively few drawbacks.

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:
Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

I live in the Midwest and drive a 2000 Toyota Echo sedan with automatic transmission. While you’re probably aware that it snows a lot in the Midwest, you might be curious how a economy-class, front-wheel drive, 2000-lb car drives and handles in the snow and in other Midwestern winter conditions.

In a word, driving in snow with the Echo is tense. I tend to get nervous driving in snow anyway, and I hope the majority of other drivers do too, but honestly the Echo is just so small that it’s hard to ignore even a little snow when you’re driving. The relatively narrow tires do cut through fresh snow on a rural road pretty well, if you’re traveling along at a high enough speed (around 35 usually is good enough). And the light weight of the car means it’s pretty easy to bring it to a stop when you have time to plan your braking in advance.

But the short wheelbase and weight distribution over said wheelbase means that if you do have to stop quickly, the rear tires are quick to lock up and the back end easily starts traveling sideways. Overdo one of these stops and you’ll probably find your rear bumper leading the way into the ditch. Luckily I’ve never experienced that, and this is a problem with all front wheel drive vehicles to some extent, but it seems especially bad in the Echo. The narrower tires also mean less rubber is in contact with the ground, which works out fine because of the light weight of the Echo, but it just doesn’t feel as secure on icy roads or slush.

Also, if you do happen to slow down when you’re cutting through the snow, and you lose your momentum, you’ll get stuck. The relatively low ground clearance makes it easy to get hung up just pulling out of your driveway. But if you’re the kind of person who shovels a path just big enough for your car, you will have a slight advantage. My Toyota Echo does not have ABS or any kind of traction control, so if the model you are considering does you’ll need to think about how that might affect your experience.

After the snow is cleaned up, you have the rest of the winter wonderland to deal with – freezing temps, frosty windows and cold starts. My Echo has always started up, even at about minus 20 degrees F. Once when it was around that temperature, the transmission began slipping when I gave it too much gas leaving the parking lot at work, but that cleared up once it warmed up. The rear window defroster is pitiful. I’m not sure if there just isn’t enough electrical power between the blower, AC, headlights, wipers and all that stuff for the defroster to get warm, but it really takes a long time to melt snow or ice off the rear windshield. It can handle a little moisture or a light frost fine, but a heavy frost or snow means you must use your scraper!

One odd thing about the Echo is that when you start it cold (after having left it sit and cool down for a period of time) there is a blue temperature light that comes on in the instrument cluster. This blue gauge light is normal and means that the Echo’s engine has not reached the optimal operating temperature yet. It also means that the engine and exhaust system is running in open loop mode, which is less efficient than the mode used by a hot engine. The Echo also will not shift into the final gear until the engine warms up and the blue light goes out. This can be very scary if you’re just getting on the highway with the blue light still on, since you’ll be buzzing along at 70 mph in third gear at what feels like about 6000 rpm for half a mile and it will seem like something is wrong. But once the light goes out, the car usually is quick to shift into fourth. Sometimes on my Echo you have to let off the gas for it to upshift into the final gear.

If it’s very cold out (say less than 0 degrees F) it can take a long time for the blue light to go out. Like most modern vehicles, the Echo doesn’t warm up much when it’s started cold and left outside to idle in cold weather, so it makes no sense to start it and let it sit for 10 minutes. In my experience it will not generate much heat for the defrost or cause the blue light to go out by just idling at below-freezing temps.

The Toyota Echo is not as versatile in the snow and cold as most vehicles. But it will still get you reliably from A to B, even if you can’t see out the back window and are gripping the steering wheel tightly and worrying about sliding off the road. I’m not sure it’s a bad thing to be scared to drive too fast in the snow anyway. If you’re the kind of person who absolutely must get to work under any conditions, you’re looking at the wrong vehicle – try a 4x4 instead. If you’re the kind of person who goes back to bed when the snow is blowing or stays home on snowdays, the Echo will work fine.

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:
Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

The Toyota Echo wouldn’t be my first choice of car for a highway cruiser. Here’s why: the short wheelbase and jaunty handling characteristics that accompany it are well-suited for urban treks, but they don’t fare as well on the long hauls.

First, the tall silhouette is very susceptible to being buffeted by crosswinds, and on a day with gusty winds in excess of 10 mph you’ll be fighting the wheel just to stay in your own lane. Also, the tiny tires (13” diameter) are a mighty big benefit when you’re at the parts shop picking out new rubber, but they sure are noisy on all but the freshest blacktop. That and the economy-class soundproofing in the cabin make for a noisy, fatiguing environment inside the cabin on long trips. Frankly, it’s hard to hold a conversation or listen to the radio at a comfortable volume in the Echo at highway speeds. A better use of the Echo is for bombing around town on errand runs or as your everyday commuter.

To add to the handling drawbacks, the interior amenities are very much lacking in the Echo. Pretty much everything besides the four wheels and a seat was optional. My Echo has an aftermarket CD player in it that has a clock, otherwise a dashboard clock was only available as an option. AC and rear window defrost? Options. Power steering? Option! I guess that’s why the base price was so low (just under $14 grand). In later model years they had power windows and power locks, ABS and keyless entry, but my Echo doesn’t have those things, and I don’t think they would make it any more comfy on long trips.

The lack of cruise control becomes more than a missing amenity as your trip length is extended. It turns into a serious problem. On one voyage I remember alternating between my left and right feet on the highway to keep my foot from cramping up. Honestly, when was the last time you drove with your foot for more than an hour at a time? My foot certainly isn’t up to that kind of challenge. Sure, there are aftermarket cruise control kits for the Echo, and a lot of drivers have them installed and never look back, but I am hesitant to put one in myself and I’m not going to pay someone to add that to the car. Plus, there’s some obvious safety risks to having an aftermarket device take control of the throttle. Lets just say that I can’t believe a car made for this millennia was missing cruise control.

So the Echo falls flat as a highway-conquering cruiser, and the cabin comfort is not so good. But for an economy car with a bottom line price tag, was anyone surprised? My advice is if you’re looking for a highway cruiser you need to look elsewhere unless you’re really ready for the quirks. But if you’re not going too far  the Toyota Echo just might be for you.

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:
Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Part of what makes the Toyota Echo so attractive to me is the efficiency. While you would expect an economy-class car like the Echo to be fairly frugal, even I was surprised and skeptical when I read that the Echo sedan with an automatic tranny is EPA-eastimated to achieve 32/39 mpg. You can imagine how shocked I was, then, when I first pulled up to the pump and fueled up the 10.7 gallon tank and calculated that I had gotten 35 mpg! At that time, gas was more than $4.00 a gallon in the Midwest and SUVs and trucks were routinely dropping Bejamin Franklins into their gas tanks like it was nothing. And here’s a goofy looking car with a drivetrain that would be equally at home in a lawn mower (or so it seems sometimes) that gets 35 mpg and costs less than $50.00 to fill up.

My point is that the Echo is great on gas. Even if you factor in all the other cons about the car that you can think of, the fact is it’s an efficient little vehicle that is only a handful of mpgs less efficient than the newest Toyota Prius (at this writing) without any hybrid technology at all.

It's worth noting that the gas mileage does decrease in the hot summer months and the freezing winter months. My Echo is finished with a metallic Black Pearl paint job that get hot in the sun faster than your oven will preheat, so you’re running the AC all the time. The AC is actually an add-on option and I kind of think maybe if it had been standard equipment someone at Toyota would have wanted a bigger power plant in the Echo to run it, because it really does cause a noticeable drag on the engine. With the AC on, the auto transmission shifts later as the engine revs higher when the compressor is on. And there’s an electromagnetic clutch on the AC pulley that kicks on and off with a noticeable clunk every few mintues as the compressor engages and disengages, and your engine power will surge when it’s off and get sluggish when it’s on. It’s annoying but not too bad at highway speeds. You’ll likely notice it when you’re counting on the peppy 1.5 liter four to pull out in front of someone on a highway entrance and end up with a rearview full of their grille instead of the car lengths between you that you had hoped for.

In summer running that AC all the time I’ve seen anywhere from 32 to 38 mpg and in the winter with the heat on, battling slushy roads and cold starts anywhere from 28 to 36 mpg. Those are still some pretty decent numbers for a car with over 120k and 12 years on the clock!

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:
Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes for Tall Drivers (or Why I Chose the Echo)

I drive a 2000 Toyota Echo and I’m here to tell you that the Echo is an amazing car for tall drivers. I am 6 feet 9 inches tall with a beanpole figure, and while I do have to do a little turtling (craning the neck down and out) to see the traffic signals at intersections, the Echo is among the very very few cars that I could comfortably sit in, let alone drive.

The front head and leg room doesn’t look all that great on paper, at 39.9” and 41.1” respectively, but something about the upright driving position and tall greenhouse let it work well for tall people. It has a seat that is kind of skimpy but nothing different than your other economy class cars, and it really doesn’t offer much support beyond my butt, but since you’re sitting almost as if you were in a minivan it works. Well, it works for most trips less than 200 miles, I should say. And given the lack of cruise control you’re not going to be driving much farther than that without getting out and stretching out your foot anyway. A tiny dummy pedal on the left doesn’t do much for my size 14 foot either, and I have to consciously move my left foot off of it to it doesn’t get too stiff on a long trip.

The front doors on the sedan are large enough for large people to get in and out comfortably, and while I do have to scrunch down to enter and sit in pretty much any sedan, the Echo isn't nearly as bad as other econo cars in this class. Rather than falling into the driver's seat, I can just kind of sit down into it.

Most other tall people at my height and up are driving with their seats tipped so far back they are checking their blind spot out of the rear window, but the Toyota Echo actually lets me sit up a little straighter than normal. It’s not perfect, I’m definitely still leaning back, but I think my in-laws said it best after going for a spin: the Toyota Echo is bigger inside than it looks from the outside. Back seat room is cramped for me, I have to bend sideways or way forward to even think about sitting in the back seat, but I never spend any time back there. As a front seat passenger the room is also pretty much fine.

The Echo also comes with 60/40 folding rear seats, and as tiny as the rear trunk lid appears you can actually get a fair amount of stuff in there. Ten paper grocery bags are no problem, but bulky stuff like multiple sleeping bags or a disassembled bicycle can be a challenge. (And if you’re wondering, yes, my uber-large Schwinn Impact mountain bike does fit in the back with the seat down and both tires removed. You just need a shoehorn to get it in.)

The moral of this story is simple: if you’re 6’9” or less, an Echo will work fine for you. You might get some weird looks getting out of it, but given the reliability and mpg stuff that I’ll be touching on in future posts, I wouldn’t hesitate to pick one up.

More In The Toyota Echo Ownership Series:

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Notes on MPG

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: Highway Cruising & Cabin Comfort: Not Bad, Not A Lexus

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: What is it like driving an Echo in the snow?

Toyota Echo Ownership Experience: True Cost to Own a Toyota Echo