Do we know of any evidence one way or the other that the Gem PTFE blades in the bulk tray from Connaught are identical to those in the dispenser? I recall seeing a comment by someone that swore there was a difference, but tried looking for it and can only find the opposite, that they're the same.
Are bulk Connaught Gem PTFE the same blades as in the dispenser?
- Thread starter str8six
- Start date
I am pretty sure they are the exact same blade.
Ron R
I survived a lathey foreman
Yes they are, made by Personna in the USA. Excellent blade and Connaught is a great company to deal with. With the strong American dollar it is worth buying the 100 pcs. The 100pc are a better deal because they are individually wrapped and cheaper. You could also buy a dispenser of 10 pcs for travel also. The dispenser is nice for size and blade protection.
- Thread starter
- #4
Ya, it's a better enough deal that I wonder if everyone just went for the bulk ones and we wouldn't even notice if the dispenser offered a better shave. The post I barely remember (and may have just imagined at this point) speculated that the bulk may have been intended by Personna for some non-shaving purpose vs. the dispensers being blades explicitly meant for shaving... has anyone compared them head to head recently?
You need to be careful. The photo above is from Amazon for UNCOATED blades for scrapers. If you try to shave with these your face will not thank you.
This photo from Connaught shows the COATED blades in both the dispensers and the bulk pack. These are the ones you want for shaving. Since they're listed as the same blades, just in different quantities, I presume they really are the same. However, I have no way to prove this.
Ron R
I survived a lathey foreman
I have both small dispenser (10Pc) and also the (100pcs) and they are the same blade, Why would Connaught sell something inferior. They are simply a great blade in all respects of what makes a great blade, Sharpness, the 1st 2nd shave can be a little rough for some folks because they are one of sharpest out there and just as sharp as a Feather, great longevity and one of the best cost per shave. $.02-$.03 cents per shave from my experience & the blade smoothes out nicely. I use a mild Gem razor for the first couple of shaves to take advantage of the blade sharpness & works out nicely. Gem razors are a bargain and can be bought in the USA at antique stores or _Bay.
You want the coated Gem Personna SS PTFE(teflon) blades if possible. Some fellows like the carbon steel blades but you have to be diligent in keeping them dry as possible. Some claim the carbon blades can be smoother- not sure of that because others hate the carbon blades because they are not as sharp.
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I’ve used both the bulk box and small
dispenser blades from connaught, and experienced no difference between them.
dispenser blades from connaught, and experienced no difference between them.
All of the 3-facet blades are shave-worthy; the uncoated ones aren't as smooth but they have their adherents. Some of the drug-store branded SE stainless blades are or were the non-PTFE variety (CVS maybe?) There's a thread around about store-branded blades here somewhere that gets into this in more detail.
Actually, those ARE 3-facet grind, as it says on the label. Those are shaving blades, they are just (as also noted on the label) not PTFE coated.
The single-facet grind is the scrapers and box cutters. You do have to know that!
All Gem blades are made by Accutek, who also make other single-use blades for industrial use. In the Gem style they make carbon steel, stainless, and coated stainless in one- and three-facet grinds, with choice of unbacked, aluminum spine or steel spine.
They also make a heavy-duty Gem blade that is .003" thicker (.012 vs. .009) -- this is a single-facet blade intended for box cutters.
Looking at some of my 100+ year old Gem blades, I see steel backs, carbon steel, and for the earliest ones (with the rounded spine like a wedge) I will have to confirm with a micrometer but they seem thicker than .009".
O.H.
Hmm... Learn something new every day. I knew that Accu-tec made all the Gem blades for both shaving or industry. and I knew that the shaving blades were all 3-facet. But I thought all of the shaving blades were PTFE coated. Looking at the Amazon customer reviews of the un-coated blades, they all seemed to be using them for non-shaving purposes. Either way, it would seem to me that the coated blades would be the obvious choice for shaving. Just my opinion.
- Thread starter
- #11
Hm, I suppose what my question boils down to is if their 3 facet, PTFE coated Gem format blade explicitly marketed for shaving is at all different that 3 facet, PTFE coated Gem format blades sold for any other purpose? Like, maybe there is a final de-burring or other step they don't bother with? OTOH, it definitely makes sense to have fewer types of products just for simplicity sake so another sort of razor might help here (Occam's).
Hm! I just thought of something, I won't do it any time soon, but maybe this will inspire something and is interesting to daydream about anyhow: I like my MMOC, I like my natural stone edges on my straight razors. Rather than dive into pricey lather catchers and scarce wedge blades for them (nor go to the hassle of grinding wedge blades out of gold dollars), if I wanted to use my stones to hone blades for Gems, I could do this:
* get someone to 3d print or otherwise fabricate a honing & stropping jig that (when used with tape to keep it from wearing out) would quite precisely match the angle of the thicker box cutter blade bevels or a bit more for a microbevel (ideally they'd just slide in)
* maybe also make a handy tray to store a dozen or so
* if these are easy to use, one could sit down at a stone and zip through a dozen pretty quick as they wouldn't need too many laps on a finishing hone coming as they are with presumably an already fairly refined (but harsh) edge?
* stropping could be a similar batch process
While I may just be suppressing a latent desire for a lather catcher and 7 day set of wedge blades (or like that 31 day CVH set I saw once on Tradera wow)... do you guys think this would be feasible? Or would the edge on the scrapers need more work than just a finisher? Or would the steel itself be unsuitable for the task?
Ron R
I survived a lathey foreman
I think the lather catchers used a 2 facet edge wedge blade and usually came with a honing and lapping attachment that screwed into the handle of the razor (some models). If you buy a Gem lather catcher you can still use modern blades or the wedge blades also in most of their models(not all). Gem lather catchers are very nice to shave with and are not aggressive, 3 pass shave will rewarded usually a fellow DFS+. I have 3 lather catchers and enjoy them very much but do not hone any blades. I did some experimenting with a old glass hone from the dirty 1930's and it was interesting but the end results were not worth the effort IMO.(there is a link inside this Thread on that trial)
Gem Re-Sharpening
So I got to wondering... Since I'm in a part of Canada where I can find NO SE blades except for box cutters, whether there was some option that appealed both to my "Scottish cheapness" and to my quirk for getting interactive with my tools. I found this thread after searching several ways...
www.badgerandblade.com
The only difference is that one blade is coated with Teflon and the other isn't. The blades aren't specifically meant for shaving any more -- I mean, they ARE for shaving but that market is so miniscule that we'd have a lot of nice looking shelf queens if there wasn't another whole industry using the blades. They're widely used in medical labs and in preparing disposable medical supplies like catheters.
They're also used as disposable blades in the machines that slice up tissue cultures and prepare them for microscope slides (microtome). Technically the PTFE coating is single-use, as in a lab you'd take a blade out of the bulk dispenser, use it, toss it, set up the next process, grab a fresh blade, etc. If there was some concern about Teflon contaminating the sample, you'd use an uncoated blade instead.For shaving I have the feeling that the Teflon coating is basically gone after the first use on each side of the blade, or it can be removed by corking or stropping. I'm looking around for a good 'scope at the moment so I can dig into that.
The 3-angle grind is a compromise to get a really sharp edge on the blade with some shoulders just behind the edge to provide some stability and shear support. They're sharper and make smoother cuts than single-angle ground blades. Single-angle blades are sharp enough to cut things that don't have to be medically accurate, and are cheaper to make.
Now we're up against a different problem. Those old wedge blades, vintage Gem blades, and most vintage DE blades were carbon steel, not stainless steel. Stainless isn't all that great in general -- as a steel its attraction is that it "tends to corrode more slowly than carbon steel." It can and will rust in the right conditions, it's simply that the right conditions are harder to achieve for most of us.
Stainless, because of the added nickel and chromium, can be "tougher" if not "harder" than carbon steels. It's perfectly possible to harden and temper stainless up around 55-60 on the Rockwell "C" scale (a really good quality kitchen knife is around 50-55 Rc). It just takes more doing. Or it takes more "stuff" and we start fooling with vanadium and molybdenum and other expensive additions. "Hard" is brittle; "soft" is bendy -- "tough" is the compromise position where it's hard enough to hold the edge you want but bendy enough not to lose the edge from shocks.
Cost/benefit analysis being what it is, keeping the blades cheap enough to toss after one use in a lab is more efficient than making a blade that will last forever when the industry values cheap/disposable over expensive and you still have to toss it when you're done with it.
Stainless blades are, at very best, "difficult to sharpen." Lots of people have worn out their patience before achieving a usable edge on a stainless Gem blade. If you want to resharpen, I suggest sourcing carbon blades. They are still made, but since most of the industry that uses them prefers stainless (which also doesn't react chemically with what you're cutting), they're harder to find.
I wanted to get some of Accutek's carbon, steel-backed .012 Gem blades and try honing. After a year of chasing their engineers all over the internet, I've concluded that either they don't make them or else they just don't like selling fewer than a shipping container full. Talk about your bulk buys!
At the very least you will need to exercise the sort of patience it takes to put a good edge on fairly good quality stainless. The problem will be that you will put a single-angle grind on (you could make a jig, but for what angles?). Single-angle grinds at that sharpness aren't going to be terribly stable, which means you'd have to re-hone regularly. If you want to do that, I suggest carbon blades again. They'll save you some time and aggravation, but I should also say that I've come to believe it's too much aggravation to try to work on a Gem blade.
O.H.
Yeah, .012 + steel backed pretty much seems to limit the choices to single faceted industrial blades. .009 + aluminum backed can be found 3-faceted carbon steel blades.The only difference is that one blade is coated with Teflon and the other isn't. The blades aren't specifically meant for shaving any more -- I mean, they ARE for shaving but that market is so miniscule that we'd have a lot of nice looking shelf queens if there wasn't another whole industry using the blades. They're widely used in medical labs and in preparing disposable medical supplies like catheters.
For shaving I have the feeling that the Teflon coating is basically gone after the first use on each side of the blade, or it can be removed by corking or stropping. I'm looking around for a good 'scope at the moment so I can dig into that.
The 3-angle grind is a compromise to get a really sharp edge on the blade with some shoulders just behind the edge to provide some stability and shear support. They're sharper and make smoother cuts than single-angle ground blades. Single-angle blades are sharp enough to cut things that don't have to be medically accurate, and are cheaper to make.
Now we're up against a different problem. Those old wedge blades, vintage Gem blades, and most vintage DE blades were carbon steel, not stainless steel. Stainless isn't all that great in general -- as a steel its attraction is that it "tends to corrode more slowly than carbon steel." It can and will rust in the right conditions, it's simply that the right conditions are harder to achieve for most of us.
Stainless, because of the added nickel and chromium, can be "tougher" if not "harder" than carbon steels. It's perfectly possible to harden and temper stainless up around 55-60 on the Rockwell "C" scale (a really good quality kitchen knife is around 50-55 Rc). It just takes more doing. Or it takes more "stuff" and we start fooling with vanadium and molybdenum and other expensive additions. "Hard" is brittle; "soft" is bendy -- "tough" is the compromise position where it's hard enough to hold the edge you want but bendy enough not to lose the edge from shocks.
Cost/benefit analysis being what it is, keeping the blades cheap enough to toss after one use in a lab is more efficient than making a blade that will last forever when the industry values cheap/disposable over expensive and you still have to toss it when you're done with it.
Stainless blades are, at very best, "difficult to sharpen." Lots of people have worn out their patience before achieving a usable edge on a stainless Gem blade. If you want to resharpen, I suggest sourcing carbon blades. They are still made, but since most of the industry that uses them prefers stainless (which also doesn't react chemically with what you're cutting), they're harder to find.
I wanted to get some of Accutek's carbon, steel-backed .012 Gem blades and try honing. After a year of chasing their engineers all over the internet, I've concluded that either they don't make them or else they just don't like selling fewer than a shipping container full. Talk about your bulk buys!
At the very least you will need to exercise the sort of patience it takes to put a good edge on fairly good quality stainless. The problem will be that you will put a single-angle grind on (you could make a jig, but for what angles?). Single-angle grinds at that sharpness aren't going to be terribly stable, which means you'd have to re-hone regularly. If you want to do that, I suggest carbon blades again. They'll save you some time and aggravation, but I should also say that I've come to believe it's too much aggravation to try to work on a Gem blade.
O.H.
Ron R
I survived a lathey foreman
I have a picture of the Gem Personna SS PTFE 3 Faceted blade looks like blown up if folks want to know what we are talking about!
Have some great shaves! Stay safe in these times!
Have some great shaves! Stay safe in these times!
- Thread starter
- #16
Henckels, Puma, C-Mon, lots of nice stainless straights out there that take a fine edge. But of course they'd choose an alloy with rehoning in mind whereas Accutek is only concerned with what works best with their factory tooling. Too bad the carbon ones aren't easier to come by, thanks for sharing your attempt and definitely appreciate the insight on what they're used for---I'd not delved into the specifics, but had thought the tray was for industry and the 10pc dispensers for shaving but you're probably right that we're too small a market for any of that so I'll take that as conclusive answer to my original question as to what difference there might be.
As for "but for what angles?" I was thinking just a bit more than whatever angle the single bevel one is at the edge to put a microbevel on it with a finishing hone. But you make it sound like the angle on the single bevel is probably already pretty obtuse for shaving purposes so there goes that idea---I was hoping to avoid having to do a lot of laps on several hones since I'd be starting from a fresh edge.
Ah nice, ya, that's helpful. I'd try to aim for the edgemost facet in that case, though I wouldn't want to start with a fresh coated blade as the coating presumably would maybe slightly clog the hone (though probably do nothing).
At any rate though, I agree it's not worth it but if someone takes up the challenge for the fun of it and blazes a trail that turns out to lead somewhere I'd still be curious to try and replicate.
It'd be great to find a jig from Lee Valley for it! [grin] One of my go-to-tools for making tool handles and axe and shovel handles is a spokeshave. I have some lovely jigs for putting accurate microbevels on spokeshave irons.
Kinda like the razors, I also have several spokeshaves. Seems like I use them almost as often. Wonder how one would shave?
O.H.
- Thread starter
- #18
Found out in the more appropriately named thread that there indeed was such a product! And @RenoRichard was nice enough to test it out for our edification:
Gem Re-Sharpening
Many of the old wedge razor sets and even some Gem-style SE sets came with a stropping attachment designed like you one you describe; you often find them in boxes of old razor parts and odds-and-ends lots on ebay. Ever Ready made a stropping tool that you threaded the strop through and used in...
www.badgerandblade.com
And wow, woodworking seems like it would involve exactly the sort of acquisition disorders I'm susceptible to---I never thought I'd collect anything until I met straight razors and hones but something about the history and variety and getting to play a (usually conveniently minor) part in their restoration and maintenance really seems to convince me I need unreasonably many.
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