Yaqi Ultima

It's a two piece.

Actually It's 7 pieces.
Easy disassembling ... and cleaning.

This is a copy and paste with my initial outing with the Ultima on another forum. Apologies for the extra blah, blah, blah…

Initial shave is done and went better than expected. Much better actually. I won’t go into a whole breakdown and explanation of tolerances, quality, build or alloy make up as those attributes have been spoken and explained exceptionally well in this thread. Further shaves will be needed on my part just to get a good overall feel for the Yaqi Ultima before I sing or denounce its praises. The things that I will comment on are on initial feel of the tool in hand, the quality in process of adjustment through its gap/size ranges and most importantly, blade fitment and its preciseness. One other thing, this tool is a fingerprint magnet. The quality of polish on this razor by Yaqi is world class. I must admit at seeing this high nature of a polish I was feeling rather apprehensive that the fitment of the blade could be in question if the grade of polishing wasn’t done uniformly especially within the head and cap area. Fingers were crossed.

Feel = This is a small razor in hand. It’s actually quite close to the original Gibbs Reglable in physical stature. But, it has excellent weight that is balanced just right under the head giving a neutral feel on weight bias, neither head or handle heavy. Small in my hands yet, still workable and comfortable to hold. When wet though, it changes things a bit but, we’ll get to that later.

Workings = The adjustment mechanism and the range of that adjustment was very smooth and seemed consistent without any grinding, skipping or overall roughness through its complete movement from setting #1 all the way around back to setting #1 (technically setting #7 or #7.5). The adjustment plate gave no indication of being canted or off tolerance with a blade installed that to my naked eye I could perceive. The whole movement was fluid, smooth and consistent. Big plus for me there.

Blade Alignment/Fitment = As I touched on briefly in the paragraph above, the blade fitment was spot on, at least to my naked eye. No fiddling, meddling or holding the blade precisely to keep it centered and aligned properly. The tabs did their job as expected and gave a near perfect alignment on both sides of the working ends with identical exposure and reveal at every minute movement of the dial going up or down on the ranges, left - right on the knurled adjustment knob. Kudos to Yaqi for precision and quality of that aspect.

The shave was quite good. I did 2 full complete passes with no touch ups, pick ups or buffing. Reason is I went for broke and ripped it wide open on setting #7-7.5ish. At that setting, it’s got some significant blade feel but, not a ferocious or harsh feeling in my first go. That said, it will slice a few layers of epidermis if you slack for a moment. After the first pass I brought it down to setting #3.5 or abouts and it felt really good with a nice trio combo of smoothness, efficiency and blade feel. I used a Polsilver Iridium for this shave and it was an excellent choice. The razor was easy to use and wield around the face and contours of the skin & neck area as well. Only issue I had in this first shave was with the handle itself. The problem is knurling or better yet, the lack of it and the near nonexistent fact of tactile feel once the razor goes into full shave mode with lather, soap and hair hanging on one’s hands. Perhaps I’m a bit of a weirdo but, I enjoy good tactile feel whether by knurling, serration, ridges or what have you on a handle that would provide ease of use and adjustment within the hands that gives me near thoughtless maneuverability within the shave. Maybe I’m just spoiled with the excellent handles that are now offered from these razor manufacturers and handle makers that I take it for granted. Nonetheless, though not a nullifying factor in disregarding and classifying this tool as useless, it does contribute initially that slippage and moments of error are more easily attained by no one’s fault of their own. A couple touches on the alum block helped alleviate that issue but, the minor inconvenience that this situation causes still has to be noted and spoken of for the sake of transparency. One minor detail is the numbering on the dial. Some color would have helped here. Black and a red marking point would have done wonders on the aesthetics side and visually helped equally.

Overall it was a good performing shave and I look forward to getting in a few more and putting the Yaqi Ultima through its paces with some heavy whisker growth in the coming days and weeks. I think it will excel in that department as well.

Great shaves to all….

Went ahead with shave #2 this morning though hair growth was minimal. Yesterdays shave with the Ultima & Polsilver pairing gave me nearly 16 hours (I shaved at about 4:30am yesterday and finally felt some whiskers peeking through at nearly 8pm) of whisker free face feel rubbing. No small feat and I was very surprised by the longevity of the shave. Didn’t think it was that close but, I was proven wrong. Today I set it at 2.5 and just did an ATG pass with a touch up/buff on the chin. Good as new and smooth everywhere on both face & neck. No irritation to speak of and just 2 small weepers near the stache area. No issues with the handle and grip as I kept my fingers on the alum when needed. Damn, I sure wish it had some knurling though. Maybe Yaqi will offer just handles for their Ultima owners so one can swap out to their liking. Probably not but, one never knows.

Another great feeling shave by the Ultima.

Went ahead with shave #2 this morning though hair growth was minimal. Yesterdays shave with the Ultima & Polsilver pairing gave me nearly 16 hours (I shaved at about 4:30am yesterday and finally felt some whiskers peeking through at nearly 8pm) of whisker free face feel rubbing. No small feat and I was very surprised by the longevity of the shave. Didn’t think it was that close but, I was proven wrong. Today I set it at 2.5 and just did an ATG pass with a touch up/buff on the chin. Good as new and smooth everywhere on both face & neck. No irritation to speak of and just 2 small weepers near the stache area. No issues with the handle and grip as I kept my fingers on the alum when needed. Damn, I sure wish it had some knurling though. Maybe Yaqi will offer just handles for their Ultima owners so one can swap out to their liking. Probably not but, one never knows.

Another great feeling shave by the Ultima.

Could always check with Clouds He made me a brass one for my final cut Gus

3 days of whisker growth as I wanted to see how the Yaqi Ultima would take on some decent stubble fully wide open and ultimately how my skin would feel at the end. I still had the Polsilver Iridiums blade installed with this shave being its 3rd. Cracked it wide open a full turn back to 1 (7) after a full shower threw on some Fine Platinum suds and it was off to the shave races. 2.5 passes later, it was a complete BBS finish that rivaled some of the best results I’ve had in the past few months. Super nice and efficient feeling shave with some nice face feeling smoothness as I dialed it down to 4.5 then 2.5 for the final 1/2 buff-pick ups pass. A really awesome shave that was top notch in feel & comfort. No nics, cuts or irritation to discuss and just the tiniest of weepers at the corner of the stache. The razor and blade combo felt firmly planted on the skin with no skipping or blade deflection which can give a sort of skittish feel as the razor glides across a particular area. It cut through the he whiskers with ease yet firm authority on each stroke. It felt really good and balanced transitioning from North to South and also left to right and vice-versa. Overall an extremely pleasant shave from start to finish that just raised the question in my head “Are these Asian made razors really closing the gap on quality & performance against their US & European counterparts?”

The Yaqi Ultima is making a case so far. At least in my shave den. Great shaves to all…

“Are these Asian made razors really closing the gap on quality & performance against their US & European counterparts?”

The Yaqi Ultima is making a case so far. At least in my shave den. Great shaves to all…

I believe that the Ultima is better than most of them and at half the price.

Hope someone does a comparison between the Ultima and the Osprey!