Blade Comparisons, Please: Merkur, Feather, Derby, Other

[Jim Whiting]

After learning w/ Merkur DE blades, I took the plunge and purchased some Feathers. Using a GENTLE 3 pass system now-north/south, followed by oblique, followed by south/north, my face is like glass (Actually, I think glass is rougher).
Cheers!
Jim

 

[javyn]

I have used Merkur, Derby, Gillette Platinum, Swedish Gillette, Israeli Personnas; and this week popped in a Feather for the first time.

To me, the Swedish Gillettes, Derbies, and Feathers are the sharpest; in that order. I was intimidated by the Feather yesterday, trying it for the first time, so I dialed it down and shaved with a setting of 3 and lower on my Gillette HD. It was ok, but not very close. So today I used the settings that I'd use for any other razor blade and wow....totally smooth shave. I was fascinated with the huge amount of stubble I was seeing while rinsing off the blade, after doing the lightest passes on my neck.

I think Kyle's review for the Derby blades was right on 100%. I don't know if it is because those were the brand I started out with back in October, or what, but I think they are both sharper and smoother than the Swedish Gillettes. Not that there is that much of a difference between them to me really. I tend to nick myself a little with the Swedes though, not so with the Derby.

I think the Merkurs are nice, but I do feel them cutting the hairs and sometimes drag a little. This is especially true for me with the Israeli blades, too. I used them in my non-adjustable 1904 razor and really burned myself from having to make so many aggressive passes, and still had stubble left over. I am going to save those blades for my Futur, where I can really crank up the setting on them.


In my 5 or so months of experience with all this, "sharper" has been synonymous with "smoother". If I nick myself, it is because of a duller blade. So in a nutshell, I like Derby, and now, Feather.

 

[enlightenment]

I too find that "Sharper is Smoother." That's why i use feathers in my vision. It's like they say in the kitchen; "A sharper knife is a safer knife." For me, i find that i have to over work the swedish gillettes to get a smooth shave, which in turn leads to irritation. I have been so happy with the shaves the feathers give that i went to cottonblossom and bought the 10 pack deal.

 

[DoubleE]

I too find that "Sharper is Smoother." That's why i use feathers in my vision. It's like they say in the kitchen; "A sharper knife is a safer knife." For me, i find that i have to over work the swedish gillettes to get a smooth shave, which in turn leads to irritation. I have been so happy with the shaves the feathers give that i went to cottonblossom and bought the 10 pack deal.

Agreed. There's no contest as to which razor/blade combination gives me the closest and most effortless shave: Vision/Feather. While I can get good shaves with others, it tends to take more work. That said, it always feels like I'm living on the ragged edge when shaving with the Vision/Feather combination. I can zip the others around without too much fear of pain but I must concentrate when I use the V/F. If I could only keep one razor and one blade........well, except for that under the nose thing.

 

[Wet]

The "Swedish" Gillettes are the smoothest I have ever used. Followed by the Merkur blades, but I prefer the Gillettes.

Randy

I agree.

Wet

 

[Elgar]

I have experience with American Personna, Feather, Merkur and now Derby. I don't know if I agree that the smoothest equals the sharpest (smoothest here meaning smoothest feeling whilst shaving, not smoothest results). For me, the smoothest shaver seems to be the Merkur, but it tends to pull and drag; Feathers are the sharpest, but tend to give me weepers everywhere before I know what happened; Personnas don't pull and drag, but give me uneven results and require extra attention in certain spots; and the Derby blades fit my shaving style the best of all. They seem to be plenty sharp and plenty smooth. Haven't tried Swedish Gillettes, Wilkinson Sword or Israeli Personnas. That's next week.

BTW, maybe I've missed this somewhere, but anyone know where these Derby Extra blades are manufactured?

-Ken

 

[guenron]

Howdy Ken,
From reading the package it appears to be Turkey. Then again.. I hope I can agree with your assessment.. I just bought 500...
I am absolutely astonished by those extolling the Euro (Swedish?) Gillettes. Nowhere nearly as sharp as the Feather, nor not nearly as smooth as the Merkur. When shaving with them, I find myself getting a 5 o'clock shadow at 5 o'clock.

 

[Elgar]

Howdy Ken,
From reading the package it appears to be Turkey. Then again.. I hope I can agree with your assessment.. I just bought 500...
I am absolutely astonished by those extolling the Euro (Swedish?) Gillettes. Nowhere nearly as sharp as the Feather, nor not nearly as smooth as the Merkur. When shaving with them, I find myself getting a 5 o'clock shadow at 5 o'clock.

Ron,

They do appear to be Turkish. I see that in Turkey, a blister pack of 5 Derby Extra blades will set you back 2,300,000 TL. 2.3 million of anything sounds a bit pricy - I certainly hope their currency isn't at parity with the dollar. That would account for the inordinate number of beards (as depicted in my meerschaum pipes).

500? You must shave more often or in more places than I can imagine.

-Ken

 

[guenron]

Ron,

They do appear to be Turkish. I see that in Turkey, a blister pack of 5 Derby Extra blades will set you back 2,300,000 TL. 2.3 million of anything sounds a bit pricy - I certainly hope their currency isn't at parity with the dollar. That would account for the inordinate number of beards (as depicted in my meerschaum pipes).

500? You must shave more often or in more places than I can imagine.

-Ken

Hi Ken,
FYI from Wikipedia:

On January 1, 2005 a new currency, the Yeni Türk Lirası (YTL, ISO 4217: TRY), was introduced to Turkey. The currency was revalued and is worth one million of the old lira. The new lira is divided into 100 new kurus, and is issued in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 YTL notes, and 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 kurus and 1 YTL coins.

So what you are seeing is about $1.73..
Man, you had me thinking I could retire on my razor blade buy!

 

[Pilot]

I'm perplexed by the Swedes - I'm on my 4th shave and I've got to really watch my technique as I've got some burn going on. I can't say they've provided me a great experience with my Merkur Progress yet. I'm awaiting a 40's SS to arrive and will try with it. I've only tried Merkur to date and have only been DE shaving for like 6 weeks - so hardly the expert yet.

 

[guenron]

I'm perplexed by the Swedes - I'm on my 4th shave and I've got to really watch my technique as I've got some burn going on. I can't say they've provided me a great experience with my Merkur Progress yet. I'm awaiting a 40's SS to arrive and will try with it. I've only tried Merkur to date and have only been DE shaving for like 6 weeks - so hardly the expert yet.

Greetings Pilot! (I assume you have a name aside from a vocation?) Expertise is not really necessary here. You have ventured into the area of personal preference, variety of equipment, and hutzpah! The mis-issue of Mr. & Mrs. Greenberg's chance union is proof positive that expertise doesn't count. If you don't mind my asking, how open do you have your Progress and what soap or cream do you use?

 

[Elgar]

I got really curious about the blades in this thread and what made them so different when they looked so similar. I ventured into the attic this evening and found the old dissection scope I used to use for Roman numismatics. It tops out at only 30X magnification, but I could easily note a number of interesting differences in the edges of the blades and how they must have been made. I've been searching the internet on a comprehensive guide to the processes involved in making blades and the terms used in "blade anatomy" without too much luck. I'd like to know a little more about what I'm seeing.

I wish I could photograph what the stereomicroscope is showing and post the results. We have an image scanner at work with a very high native resolution, so I'm thinking about "scanning" the blades at full resolution and seeing what I can come up with. I'm also sniffing around for a good micrometer I can borrow from someone at work to compare the thicknesses.

Is anyone interested in this?

-Ken

 

[Scotto]

I got really curious about the blades in this thread and what made them so different when they looked so similar. I ventured into the attic this evening and found the old dissection scope I used to use for Roman numismatics. It tops out at only 30X magnification, but I could easily note a number of interesting differences in the edges of the blades and how they must have been made. I've been searching the internet on a comprehensive guide to the processes involved in making blades and the terms used in "blade anatomy" without too much luck. I'd like to know a little more about what I'm seeing.

I wish I could photograph what the stereomicroscope is showing and post the results. We have an image scanner at work with a very high native resolution, so I'm thinking about "scanning" the blades at full resolution and seeing what I can come up with. I'm also sniffing around for a good micrometer I can borrow from someone at work to compare the thicknesses.

Is anyone interested in this?

-Ken

Heck yeah!

 

[Kyle]

Definitely! I think this could be a very cool/informative thread.

 

[guenron]

I got really curious about the blades in this thread and what made them so different when they looked so similar. I ventured into the attic this evening and found the old dissection scope I used to use for Roman numismatics. It tops out at only 30X magnification, but I could easily note a number of interesting differences in the edges of the blades and how they must have been made. I've been searching the internet on a comprehensive guide to the processes involved in making blades and the terms used in "blade anatomy" without too much luck. I'd like to know a little more about what I'm seeing.

I wish I could photograph what the stereomicroscope is showing and post the results. We have an image scanner at work with a very high native resolution, so I'm thinking about "scanning" the blades at full resolution and seeing what I can come up with. I'm also sniffing around for a good micrometer I can borrow from someone at work to compare the thicknesses.

Is anyone interested in this?

-Ken

Great stuff Ken. Somewhere in the tomes of B&B is a link to an article dealing with the product R&D done by Gillette. The technology is incredible and really sounds like an abstract from Buck Rodgers. (You know who he is/was?) Carbon like diamond, one or two atoms thick, low grav vapor deposition techniques for platinum coating. Man, this is great stuff.

 

[Elgar]

This is by no means scientific, but here is a bit of information I've gathered on some of the different blades discussed in this thread.

I found the following in a Pakistani magazine written in English. Apparently, the DE razor is still the standard for shaving in Pakistan:

"...the modern type of disposable safety razor blade did not appear until 1901, when a Wisconsin travelling salesman, King Camp Gillette, and an engineer, William Nickerson, were granted a patent.

A razor blade starts its life as a continuous coil of rolled steel strip about four thousandths of an inch (0.1 mm) thick, about the same thickness as the hair it is designed to cut.

The steel is an alloy containing about 13 percent chromium, which gives it increased hardness and resistance to corrosion. The hardness is increased further by heating the steel and then plunging it into cool fluid. The shaving edge is produced by grinding. The strip passes through three sets of grinding wheels, each grinding finer than the one before. The wheels are set at different angles to give what is called a gothic-arch (curved) cross-section. The shape is stronger than a straight-sided wedge. The sharpness of the blade is expressed as the radius of the curve forming extreme tip of the cutting edge: about five hundred thousandths of a millimeter.

After grinding, the cutting edge is polished by rotating leather wheels. On a microscopic scale, however, the edge is still rough and because of friction, liable to snag the hairs and cause discomfort. To protect the cutting tip and reduce friction, the blade is given three successive coatings: chromium, ceramic and the plastic PTFE, more familiar as the slippery non-stick coating on pans. The chromium resists corrosion, the ceramic reduces wear and the PTFE produces lubrication.

The coating are each less than one hundred thousandths of a millimeter thick. The razor blade fits into a holder with a handle, which may be adjustable and may screw open to take the blade."

The above is more than probably the process of one particular manufacturer. I modified a stereoscope with some paper towel tubing and was able to get some images of blades (right out of the package) with a cheap Kodak digital camera.

Derby Extra

Merkur

Personna (US)

Feather

Seeing these in their sharper, 3D glory, I can say the following:

The Derby Extra blade evaluated has two distinct angles on its edges. Judging by the discontinuity of the grooves from the grinding process, each of these two angles is made at made by a different step in the process. The different angles on these blades have distinct, medium-sized grooves, but look evenly polished. The surface of the angle approaching each tip is fairly wide, but the very tip of the cutting edge can't really be studied at this magnification; still, the cutting edges are straight and have no obvious anomalies. These blades are in keeping with a gothic arch shape described in the article.

The Merkur blade sampled has three distinct angles on its edges. Judging by the discontinuity of the grooves from the grinding process, each of these three angles is made at made by a different step in the process. The different angles on these blades have coarse grooves that appear somewhat deep and relatively unpolished compared to the other samples. The surfaces of the last angle before the edges are very abrupt. The final cutting edges appear straight and have no obvious anomalies, but the blades have some splotches of coating or paraffin (presumably from the paper or the packaging process). These blades are in keeping with a gothic arch shape.

The American Personna blade sampled has two distinct angles on its edges. Judging by the discontinuity of the grooves left by the grinding process, each of these two angles is made at made by a different step in the process. The different angles on these blades have distinct medium-sized grooves, but look smoothly polished. The surfaces of the last angle before the cutting edges are relatively narrow. The final cutting edges are straight but have a lot of splotches of a coating or paraffin that make the cutting edge appear jagged and ununiform. These blades are made with the gothic arch shape.

The Feather blade sampled has two non-distinct, gently tapered angles on its edges. The continuity of the grooves from the grinding process indicates the entire tapered surface was made in the same grinding process. The edges of these blades have distinct fine grooves, but look smoothly polished. The entire ground portion of each edge is wide and the edges are somewhat wedge shaped. The cutting edges look straight and have no obvious anomalies. The blades have a long taper that, while having two slightly different angles, seem to have a shape of their own. A remarkable product that is understandably unlike any other.

I find that the wider the surface of "final approach" (or the more acute the last angle) to the very tip of the blade, the sharper the blade seems to my face; more abrupt final approaches seem to product fewer cuts and weepers, but more uneven shaving results. The residual coatings/paraffin on some the blades studied might explain the common observation that some blades shave more smoothly and evenly after a pass or two because these residues are likely to wear off.

I'd now like to get a look at the very tips of these blades and also see how they change with use.

-Ken

 

[Kyle]

Excellent writeup, Ken.

 

[guenron]

Ken,
For some reason I am unable to see the ATTACHED images you have embedded in your message. Do you think you could post them in the Gallery?

 

[Elgar]

Ken,
For some reason I am unable to see the ATTACHED images you have embedded in your message. Do you think you could post them in the Gallery?

Ron,

I hope they are displaying for everyone now. I can't tell for sure from here because the attached ones displayed on my browser.

Thanks!
Ken

 

[Scotto]

Now it works. Awesome post, Ken!!