Scanning Electron Microscope Blade Edge Images

[Evil4blue]

That is cool to see. Can anyone do an actual analysis on what I am seeing in the magnified images? I see some look cleaner than others, but what does that mean in terms of sharpness or shave quality? What can we learn from these images? I have no clue, but am interested in hearing what others know.

Here's a couple of the above images with labels to better understand what you're looking at.

 

[HerrWalters]

Sweet pics.

 

[nuclearblast]

Impressive!

 

[CamSync]

This thread is damm cool !
As mentioned, I'd also love to see a blade or two after a couple shaves..

Thx. much for your time on this.

 

[Evil4blue]

I can do some used blades, no problem. I'll have to do these as I get some free time at work (need to stay employed to have access to this sort of equipment!). I can also look into the palm/hand stropping thing.

I can load 6 blades at a time, so I think next week I'l try and get all the Personna types I have plus Feathers, Astras, and Derbys. Those seem to be more popular so I'll do those first.

Like I said, I have a ton of brands, so I'll try and get them all over time. I'm going to try to keep all my setting consistent so we can get a true 1:1 comparison between blades.

If someone with the know-how wants to add these to one of the Wikis, maybe that would be a better way to keep all these pictures and data.

 

[takisg]

A really great work, a work of art i might say...thanks for sharing!

 

[MrSmith]

Very cool. Its posts like these and guys like you, who take the time to do this for the community, that makes this such a wonderful place. Thank you.

+1. Subscribed. This is supremely interesting to me. I am really interested in the Lab vs Med vs Red. Maybe we can finally settle the discussion on the Lab/Med enigma. Thank you again.

 

[calhoun1]

Thanks for the explanation! Very interesting to see the different defects. Now if only there was a way to see sharpness!

 

[Evil4blue]

Thanks for the explanation! Very interesting to see the different defects. Now if only there was a way to see sharpness!

The only way I can think of measuring sharpness would be to mount the blade on end and try to measure the blade edge at its narrowest point. This could potentially give you a quantifiable number, but would be near impossible to do consistently. Fine edge blades would be angstroms across and if you didn't guarantee that the blade was perfectly perpendicular to the detector, your measurement would be and could be way off.

That's a long way of saying it's really, really hard.

 

[bassman314]

This is just so very cool! Thank you for sharing!

 

[mblakele]

A few interesting things...the Super Thins claim to be platinum coated, but my elemental analysis doesn't show any platinum on the razor surface. The blade edge does have some sort of coating or oxidation, but it's not elementally different than the rest of the blade.

The Silver Blues don't claim to be platinum coated (I believe) but platinum show up in the analysis.

That is interesting. What about PTFE? Should flourine show up in your analysis? I would be surprised if any of these blades lack PTFE or something like it.

The only way I can think of measuring sharpness would be to mount the blade on end and try to measure the blade edge at its narrowest point. This could potentially give you a quantifiable number, but would be near impossible to do consistently. Fine edge blades would be angstroms across and if you didn't guarantee that the blade was perfectly perpendicular to the detector, your measurement would be and could be way off.

That's a long way of saying it's really, really hard.

Also the tip radius would not say much of anything about durability. Different blades are made from different grades of steel, and then there are different heat treatments and hardness coatings.

 

[Evil4blue]

That is interesting. What about PTFE? Should flourine show up in your analysis? I would be surprised if any of these blades lack PTFE or something like it.



Also the tip radius would not say much of anything about durability. Different blades are made from different grades of steel, and then there are different heat treatments and hardness coatings.

I wasn't thinking straight, you're correct, heat treat/temper/composition will all have an affect on the sharpness of a blade making the edge measure moot.

As for detecting the fluorine in PTFE coatings, there should be a peak at about 0.7 keV, but iron has a secondary peak in the same location and it completely overshadows the F peak. EDS wouldn't be the correct test for detecting a teflon coating.

 

[Evil4blue]

We need someone to get access to an instrument like this:

http://www.catra.org/pages/products/kniveslevel1/st.htm

Then maybe we can get some real sharpness testing done.

 

[DrAwkward]

I think the Gillette Blacks are excellent blades, but I have always thought they are just a bit rough. No doubt it is just my imagination or failure to read these pictures properly, but they look a bit rough in these pictures. Not, however, as rough as the Greens (as he strikes Greens from the blade wish list).

 

[captaincaveman]

Man that is GREAT! Thank you for doing this!

If you get bored...as people have said, some used blades, palm stropped, corked, etc. Any possibility of getting cut-off whiskers in there? How about a drop of lather?

 

[mblakele]

As for detecting the fluorine in PTFE coatings, there should be a peak at about 0.7 keV, but iron has a secondary peak in the same location and it completely overshadows the F peak. EDS wouldn't be the correct test for detecting a teflon coating.

Thanks for explaining that - and for posting the images. They look much better than anything I can manage to capture through my cheap USB scope.

 

[Evil4blue]

I think the Gillette Blacks are excellent blades, but I have always thought they are just a bit rough. No doubt it is just my imagination or failure to read these pictures properly, but they look a bit rough in these pictures. Not, however, as rough as the Greens (as he strikes Greens from the blade wish list).

I totally agree with you. The Blacks give me a nice shave, seem sharp and smooth, but I get skin irritation with them that I don't get with other blades. I seem to have the exact same problem with Feather blades.

Of the Gillettes I have, the Yellows and SilverBlues are my favorite.

 

[Evil4blue]

Man that is GREAT! Thank you for doing this!

If you get bored...as people have said, some used blades, palm stropped, corked, etc. Any possibility of getting cut-off whiskers in there? How about a drop of lather?

I will try to get some of these "experiments" done in the coming weeks, but lather and probably hair would be problematic. SEM is run under extreme vacuum, so lather can't be done.

As for the hair, I'd have to find a good way to hold it in place on my specimen stand and I would have to reconfigure the instrument to run with a different detector. This isn't difficult, but would take a little time. **Warning - Nerd Outbreak** Back in the day, you could only conduct SEM analysis on conductive materials, so organics (like hair and human tissue) would have to be prepped by gold plating the sample. Nowadays, we can run a low vacuum, back scatter analysis on organic material and it's works awesome. No prep time and we get nice high res, high mag images, but like I said above, its a slightly different setup from looking at the razor blades.

 

[Galaktus]

+1. Subscribed. This is supremely interesting to me. I am really interested in the Lab vs Med vs Red. Maybe we can finally settle the discussion on the Lab/Med enigma. Thank you again.

Exactly what I was thinking. I got Meds and Labs, PM meyour address if you need some for experimental purposes.

 

[Evil4blue]

Exactly what I was thinking. I got Meds and Labs, PM meyour address if you need some for experimental purposes.

I appreciate the offer, but I have all 3 already. I'm off for the weekend already, so when I get back to my office Monday, I make some time and scan the Personnas and post the results here.

Actually, I pulled 20+ different blades that I'll take to work with me next week and I'll scan them all in due time.

As we get further along, I may take donations of a blade or 2 for brands I may not have or can get a hold of, but I have enough to keep me busy for a little bit.