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Medicine cabinet blade slot

I did a search on 'razor blade banks' and a company called West Coast Shaving sells them for a dollar each.

Yeah, I remember having medicine cabinets with a razor blade disposal slot in the back. Haven't seen one in a while, though. the next time I'm at Lowes I'll have to check just for grins. :w00t:

Yeah the cabinets at my parents house have those...always thought it was dumb because you just get a big pile of blades in the wall behind the cabinet and when you go to renovate the bathroom and rip out the cabinet 200 blades pour out...I just took an old 1/4 pound metal box for loose tea (twinnings) knocked a slot in the lid with a 1" chisel and got a swanky blade bank. It's also all steel so i can just recycle the whole thing.
 
I think a cool improved version would be to have a slot in your mirror (counter to ceiling type) that had a chute down to a container under your sink cabinet. So you still get the cool disposal, but you can empty it as needed.


That could be made for the right price :lol: :thumbup:
 
And for those of you who would like to make a slot in the back of your cabinet to drop blades into here is how it is done......


Most medicine cabinets have 4 screws either in the sides or on the back wall of the cabinet that holds the cabinet in place.... unload your cabinet and take the shelves out if they are removable shelves.... take out the 4 screws and then check around the outside of the cabinet where it contacts the wall to see if it was caulked, if it was then use a SE blade to cut the caulking to separate the cabinet from the wall. (take note, some contractors cant read and use adhesive caulk and this can present a problem) Once you have done this you should be able to remove the cabinet from the wall.

Now that the cabinet is removed you can either replace it with one of the old style cabinets with the slot in it already, or put a slot in the one you have. Be sure to cut a slot that slants down so the blades will have room to go in.

While you have the cabinet out look into the wall to see if there is any insulation below the cabinet where the blades would fall. if there is then you will need to pull this out... Be sure to also check if there are any electrical lines in the wall below the cabinet that might be cut by falling blades.... if there is this is very simple to remedy. get a few of the plastic report covers and drape them over the wires like a tent.

When all that is done simply reverse the cabinet removal procedure to install it and you are done. :thumbup:

Have fun and good luck :thumbup:
 
Oh darn-diddly-arn! I'm just about to start renovating my house and now I want one of these cabinets. This is too cool not to have. The only problem is that all my walls are solid brick, not to mention the fact that i'd have to fabricate my own cabinet because I've never seen anything like it this side of the ocean.
You guys are going to ruin me. I mean the odd brush or tube of cream won't hurt, but this is getting out of hand. Home Improvement Aquiring Disorder? Please spare me, I have a wife and two hungry kids!
 
While a friend was having her century-old house renovated they found that at some point when the bathrom was updated (likely in the 30s-40s), they had built a tall box out of thin plywood that fit snugly in the space to catch the blades. The renovator said it had about 5 gallons or so of old blades in it and boy was he grateful to the guy who built it! That's a nice little PIF from one generation to another...
 
I didn't even know these existed let alone if my cabinet had one or not so I just looked now and, cool it has one!

I think this is pretty cool but I won't be using it at all. I have no idea what's back there these days and I would rather not ruin something like wires if they are back there now. I also don't like the idea of some poor guy cutting himself on my blades in the future.
 
Another problem encountered in demolition and construction is turning on an electromagnet at a work site and having the entire side of a nearby building ripped open by all the razor blades in the wall. Really, this happens all the time, really.:001_rolle:lol:
 
I didn't even know these existed let alone if my cabinet had one or not so I just looked now and, cool it has one!

I think this is pretty cool but I won't be using it at all. I have no idea what's back there these days and I would rather not ruin something like wires if they are back there now. I also don't like the idea of some poor guy cutting himself on my blades in the future.

I'm sure somebody's used it before so if they don't get cut on your razor blades they'll get cut on someone else's.
 
I think the remarkable fact about these medicine cabinet slots for razor blade disposal is that they were introduced *after* blades were being made of stainless steel. Before that they would have made much more sense.
 
100 years ago, a room was built to last basically forever. People didn't remodel every few years, the builders assumed that the wall they put would stay there until the building was torn down.
 
When I went to the Peaks of Otter (a hotel along the Blue Ridge Parkway) two months ago, I took a picture of the blade slot built into the TILE in the bathroom there. None the less, it was packed with blades!!

That's pretty crazy that they built those with no plan to ever empty it

on an unrelated note, I :001_tt1: the parkway, the ice storms last winter uglied her up but I can't wait for motorcycle season . . .
 
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