Do I have a frankenrazor on my hands?

[Slipitysmooth]

Well...a few months back I scored a (what i though to be..) Gillette long comb new with common bar handle. The razor shaved great, all the straight teeth. The only flaw was it had no plating left whatsoever. No big deal, I polished it up to its copper/brass greatness with some Maas and it looked just dandy. Now Christmas came around and I thought of a great gift idea for myself . So I sent it off and got it plated in nickel. Got it back and it looks excellent! Loving the plate work and it has sparked ideas to do to same to a few unsightly razors I currently have...

Now I went to load a blade in it this morning for a shave with my shiny new tool and noticed the handle screwed on tight but the head was sitting slanted to one side...hopefully this picture can illustrate what I mean. I butted it up to the corner of my coffee table so the black line is straight and the handle gets closer as it leaves the head since its crooked:

So I disassembled it with some worry and noticed that the baseplate opening where the handle butts up seems skinnier then what the top of the handle is causing it to sit cockeyed and not flush up against the baseplate.

Now if I take my time I can get it seated, albeit not flush with the baseplate but basically splitting the difference and it seems to seat even as far as the blade being perpendicular to the handle. Do I have a case of a mismatched head and handle? If so I guess ill just have to take my time whenever loading it to make sure its the best I can make it and tighten it down like that. Also the shiny handle works great on my not so pretty old style head

 

[Krona Kruiser]

Nice razor! Looks familiar....
It is a mismatch. The head cap comes from a 40's Tech, the bottom plate from a short-comb NEW and the handle from another NEW. Some NEW handles were a bit slimmer or thicker on the top necks. If it's tight, it shouldn't affect the shave.

 

[cb91710]

Looks that way to me.
Aside from the beautiful plating which makes it hard to tell, the design of the handle appears to be more modern.
The old Gillettes had pretty small-ish handles, more like my old Tech.

 

[Slipitysmooth]

Nice razor! Looks familiar....
It is a mismatch. The head cap comes from a 40's Tech, the bottom plate from a short-comb NEW and the handle from another NEW. Some NEW handles were a bit slimmer or thicker on the top necks. If it's tight, it shouldn't affect the shave.

Yep it looks amazing! Man I was thinking it was a mismatch but I didn't think it was that much...At least it holds together and shaves well..I'll just take my time loading it.

 

[cb91710]

Think maybe a washer to "broaden" the handle enough so that it won't tend to "drop" into one side or the other of the base?

 

[Slipitysmooth]

hmm i was thinking maybe a small one to fill in the cutout of the baseplate could make it sit flush then? Or one to put wider then the gap like you described, would just have to be thin. Ill have to do some looking and see what I can track down.

 

[cb91710]

If you can find one that'll fit the base, that would be ideal. It would add less height than putting one across the gap, which would double the width of the gap, probably 3 threads.
Putting a smaller one on the base wouldn't impact the "strength" of the threads at all.

 

[MacDaddy]

It is a mismatch. The head cap comes from a 40's Tech.

What makes you think that it's a Tech cap? I have a few NEWs with the same split bar cap, and Krumholz also pictures it on page 212. There are at least four American NEW cap styles that I've seen: a long and short central bar, and long and short split bars.

 

[cb91710]

My ball-end gold tech (late 40s, no serial number) has a solid bar (of course, broken only by the stud).
I was thinking that it didn't have the tags on the corners, and it does, but they don't seem nearly as pronounced.

Not saying that it's definitely not a Tech cap, but it doesn't match mine.

 

[Krona Kruiser]

What makes you think that it's a Tech cap? I have a few NEWs with the same split bar cap, and Krumholz also pictures it on page 212. There are at least four American NEW cap styles that I've seen: a long and short central bar, and long and short split bars.

I've seen that head cap mostly on Techs and on English NEW's. But I will happily stand corrected .

 

[alex2363]

What makes you think that it's a Tech cap? I have a few NEWs with the same split bar cap, and Krumholz also pictures it on page 212. There are at least four American NEW cap styles that I've seen: a long and short central bar, and long and short split bars.

true, heres one

 

[alex2363]

Hers one with a Tech handle instead...........