Vintage and Contemporary Blade Thickness

[Highspeedlane]

This is nothing but a "gee whiz" post devoted to the question of blade thickness as it has evolved from the early days to today. I was drawn to this interest after reading numerous posts that have stated, "today's blades are thinner than yesteryear's blades", and in extension, how that might affect shaving with various razors.

My initial look was comparing a vintage 1927 era Gillette 3 hole blade to a contemporary Personna Super stainless steel blade. The finding? There was no difference.

Original 1927 3 hole carbon steel Gillette blade was .006" (six one thousands inch):

I measured a brand new Personna Super (some call this the "lab blue") and it was exactly the same:

Then I took a look at a Gillette Blue Blade. This was a common blade sold by Gillette well into the adjustable razor era. Its thickness? Same as the original 3 hole blades, .006"

Then I decided to measure a sample of the blades I have on hand. Wow, what a revelation. I discovered that virtually all of today's blades are .002" thinner than the blades of yesteryear! Is this good or bad? Neither as far as I can tell as most razor's easily accommodate such a variation. Nonetheless it was an eye opener.

Gillette "Thin" blade, .004" (four one thousands inch):

Dorco , .004" (four one thousands inch):

Murker, .004" (four one thousands inch):

Derby, .004" (four one thousands inch):

Gillette Silver Blue, .004" (four one thousands inch):

Gillette Nacet, .004" (four one thousands inch):

Shark, .004" (four one thousands inch):

So it appears there has been a definite move toward thinning blades. The purpose? I can speculate, but that's all it is. Presented for your edification.

 

[pcravis]

dorco korea (picture 1)feels hard and thick // dorco vietnam(pict 2) feels soft and thin

 

[pcravis]

dont tested blade

 

[Highspeedlane]

Hello Mr. Pcravis

Your Dorco is likely to measure exactly .004" (four one thousands inch) thick.

That appears to be today's standard with respect to thickness.

Best wishes sir!

 

[troy]

Interesting find, and kind of funny that the first random blade was the only (or one of the only) blades that would lead you to believing they were the same. I wonder if it is really better or just a way to squeeze more blades out of the same amount of steel. Either way I do like Lab Blues and a few from the other list, and have never noticed a difference in thicknesses. I'm sure I will be looking closer now though.

 

[bakerbarber]

Spoilers?

Just curious how my daily driver measures up.

 

[xillion]

Just to add a bit more info, here are two posts I made regarding the thickness of various Gillette blades I measured.

I opened up a few vintage Gillette blades from my collection and made some thickness measurements.




Old Type three hole blade 812 date code (US made): .0056" (0.14224mm)

New Type blade (British made): .0067" (0.17018mm)

Blue Gillette Blade (French made): .0062" (0.15748mm)

Thin Blade R4 date code (US made): .0044" (0.11176mm)

Super Blue Blade H4 date code (US made): .0039" (0.09906mm)

You're welcome Edgar. Always glad to help. The difference between the Old and New surprised me as well.
I was curious so I opened up and measured one of the US made New Type blades.





New Type blade A1 date code (US made) .0064" (0.16256mm)

 

[Highspeedlane]

Thank you for posting Xillion.

Yep, when I made my initial comparison it was Gillette 3 hole versus Personna and they were the same, so I was virtually convinced there was no difference.

Come to find out the new "standard" is .004", at least of the blades I measured. .002" is not an insignificant difference!

Just guessing but that may have come about (or at least become the norm) approximately when Gillette introduced their "Thin" blade. Now whether they were setting the trend or some other blade maker did first I'm not sure.

 

[Highspeedlane]

Interesting find, and kind of funny that the first random blade was the only (or one of the only) blades that would lead you to believing they were the same. I wonder if it is really better or just a way to squeeze more blades out of the same amount of steel. Either way I do like Lab Blues and a few from the other list, and have never noticed a difference in thicknesses. I'm sure I will be looking closer now though.

Interesting question. If I were to purely speculate, I would guess that by shaving .002" off the strip thickness of every roll of stainless that is used to produce blades there would be a substantial material savings over time, while still delivering a quality blade to the end consumer.

Whether that is the actual reason or not I don't know.

 

[Mouser]

Interesting question. If I were to purely speculate, I would guess that by shaving .002" off the strip thickness of every roll of stainless that is used to produce blades there would be a substantial material savings over time, while still delivering a quality blade to the end consumer.

Whether that is the actual reason or not I don't know.

That may not have been the only reason but I'm willing to bet it was a driving force.

 

[rabidus]

This is nothing but a "gee whiz" post devoted to the question of blade thickness as it has evolved from the early days to today. I was drawn to this interest after reading numerous posts that have stated, "today's blades are thinner than yesteryear's blades", and in extension, how that might affect shaving with various razors.

My initial look was comparing a vintage 1927 era Gillette 3 hole blade to a contemporary Personna Super stainless steel blade. The finding? There was no difference.

Original 1927 3 hole carbon steel Gillette blade was .006" (six one thousands inch):

I measured a brand new Personna Super (some call this the "lab blue") and it was exactly the same:

Then I took a look at a Gillette Blue Blade. This was a common blade sold by Gillette well into the adjustable razor era. Its thickness? Same as the original 3 hole blades, .006"

Then I decided to measure a sample of the blades I have on hand. Wow, what a revelation. I discovered that virtually all of today's blades are .002" thinner than the blades of yesteryear! Is this good or bad? Neither as far as I can tell as most razor's easily accommodate such a variation. Nonetheless it was an eye opener.

Gillette "Thin" blade, .004" (four one thousands inch):

Dorco , .004" (four one thousands inch):

Murker, .004" (four one thousands inch):

Derby, .004" (four one thousands inch):

Gillette Silver Blue, .004" (four one thousands inch):

Gillette Nacet, .004" (four one thousands inch):

Shark, .004" (four one thousands inch):

So it appears there has been a definite move toward thinning blades. The purpose? I can speculate, but that's all it is. Presented for your edification.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Raissermesser]

Interesting thread. I was looking for blade thickness while thinking about shimming. The conventional wisdom is to shim the old type Gillette and similar open comb heads to emulate the thicker blade. From these measurements, it looks like Personna are already the same thickness or close to it. Since other modern blades are only 0.0014" thinner, making a shim from a used blade makes the gap three times higher than it should be to emulate the thicker blades. A proper shim for this purpose would have to be thin, indeed.

 

[Line_Bore]

Just a guess, but steel suppliers might be more inclined to produce spools of .1 mm (~.004) stock versus .15 (~.006). Most blades are made in countries that use the metric system. In the US, it's easy to find half-inch (.500) stock, almost impossible to find 17/32 (.531). It might just be a matter of availability. I would hazard a guess that the .1 is far cheaper and easier to source. The rest is just marketing.