In this post we're going to look at the Black, Yellow, and Green 7 O'clock blades plus a Gillette Silver Blue.
Here's all the blades uncleaned, straight from the wrapper:
Gillette Black:
Gillette Yellow:
Gillette Green:
Gillette Silver Blue:
Next, I washed all the blades in high grade IPA in a sonicating bath. Here's what they look like now:
Black (left) - Yellow (right):
Black:
Yellow:
Silver Blue (left) - Green (right):
Next I mounted all the blades on edge and took some photos of the cutting edge:
Black:
Yellow:
Green:
Silver Blue:
Lastly, I'm attaching the alloy analysis:
Black:
Yellow:
Green:
Silver Blue:
So have we learned anything? First, the 7 O'clock series seems to be a thinner blade than some of the other blades I've looked at. they measured about 10um thinner than a Voskhod or Personna Lab/Med blade. I would imagine that in a razor that allows a blade to flex or flutter, you'd want to avoid really thin blades, but this is my opinion and I have no empirical evidence that this really affects someone's shave.
Next, it appears that the platinum coatings on the Black and Silver Blue blades really make the blades look crappy (scientific term
) under magnification. Both the Yellow and Green blades look much cleaner at high mag. But we now know that when Gillette adds Platinum to the name of a blade, they really add platinum to the mix. Not every company appears to do that.
As I think of stuff I will update this thread.
Enjoy!
Here's all the blades uncleaned, straight from the wrapper:
Gillette Black:
Gillette Yellow:
Gillette Green:
Gillette Silver Blue:
Next, I washed all the blades in high grade IPA in a sonicating bath. Here's what they look like now:
Black (left) - Yellow (right):
Black:
Yellow:
Silver Blue (left) - Green (right):
Next I mounted all the blades on edge and took some photos of the cutting edge:
Black:
Yellow:
Green:
Silver Blue:
Lastly, I'm attaching the alloy analysis:
Black:
Yellow:
Green:
Silver Blue:
So have we learned anything? First, the 7 O'clock series seems to be a thinner blade than some of the other blades I've looked at. they measured about 10um thinner than a Voskhod or Personna Lab/Med blade. I would imagine that in a razor that allows a blade to flex or flutter, you'd want to avoid really thin blades, but this is my opinion and I have no empirical evidence that this really affects someone's shave.
Next, it appears that the platinum coatings on the Black and Silver Blue blades really make the blades look crappy (scientific term
) under magnification. Both the Yellow and Green blades look much cleaner at high mag. But we now know that when Gillette adds Platinum to the name of a blade, they really add platinum to the mix. Not every company appears to do that.As I think of stuff I will update this thread.
Enjoy!
