Shaving Oddities!

[Ron R]

"Retired" on health grounds and fighting for disability support. I turn 45 later this year.

Seems funny when you look at what we were doing & now, we worked on critical equipment worth 10's of millions of dollars and now seeing how long a $.10 blade will last- just love it >just got to love it- its in our nature to tinker.

 

[AimlessWanderer]

Seems funny when you look at what we were doing & now, we worked on critical equipment worth 10's of millions of dollars and now seeing how long a $.10 blade will last- just love it >just got to love it- its in our nature to tinker.

Absolutely! That's why I'm enjoying getting the old hollow ground SE razors working again. Got to have a project, something to improve somehow

 

[Rusty Blade]

Also people from this period had different values, wasting anything was not even thought of no matter the price. We could learn something from these folks.

So true. Back in those days folks didn't waste anything.

 

[Ron R]

So true. Back in those days folks didn't waste anything.

I worked for a small fabricating business in Central Alberta and the father of the son who I worked for, the father loved to collect steel and was particular when we were looking for parts around his heap of rusting steel. His son wanted to clean this area up and a old shed full of bolts and small things that could still could be used possibly, His son and father finally came to agreement(months of negotiations no doubt) to move the shed with small items "with out telling me what was going on". His son tells me to take a small tractor and knock it down and scrap the stuff in our large garbage bin while he sneaks into town, Trying to make the story shorter now, The father(Jimmy) came over to me just before I started to knock this worn out shed down and was just livid and wanted to know what the hell I was doing and he was mad while I'm sitting on the tractor dumbfounded and explained my orders . In frustration he said go a head "threw his hands up surrendering"you young punk with "tears in his eyes" and we were friends and so I stopped and refused to even do anything until I talked to the son who was a clean freak and was in town doing business.>it took approx another 2 months of father & son dickering before it was finally moved for business expansion! His son explained that Jim's family suffered through the 1930's and changed him for ever.
The father Jimmy who was a mechanical genius IMO who was very young when the great depression was happening and lived through that nightmare and fought through World War 2 and I was able to bring this strong man to tears just by attempting to knock his treasure of junk down.
It must of been very very tough times for a lot of folks during the dirty thirties!

 

[Dzaw]

As an aside - the drinking glass experiment probably ironed out a rolled edge rather than honing.

I think most of my blades suffer tiny fractures at the edge rather than just wear, based on the way bright spots appear on the light bounce tests.

Those bright spots tend to appear where an edge "rolls" or forms a partial burr. The glass with just water can iron that rolled edge back straight (kind of a much finer version of a chef using a honing steel on a knife) and recover a few more shaves from it.

Eventually, this roll / straighten cycling will lead to fatigue. The first sign of that will be when you can get an extra shave or two between trips to the glass - that's work hardening, which happens right before fatigue causes failure. Then the blade will instantly become useless without real abrasive work.

Adding abrasive (like diamond dust) to the glass will only actually improve the edge if you are honing at the correct angle, or if you go notably courser and hone an entirely new bevel. I don't think I would pick a drinking glass for that work though, as razors will need very exact angle control to make a useful shaving edge.

 

[Ron R]

Adding abrasive (like diamond dust) to the glass will only actually improve the edge if you are honing at the correct angle, or if you go notably courser and hone an entirely new bevel. I don't think I would pick a drinking glass for that work though, as razors will need very exact angle control to make a useful shaving edge.

I tried diamond .25 micron diamond paste(that is one of the smallest diamond paste you can buy) on leather, denim and tried to strop a DE blade 1 yr back with total failure IMO- it seemed to blunt the edge, you must remember that the final edge is measured in millionths of a inch small enough you need a high powered microscope to even see it properly. I also tried the diamond paste in the glass and the blade did not work properly afterwards-failed to restore edge. They actually add a platinum coating to give the tiny edge strength and smoothness from my gathering information from others who helped work on the Gillette P&G Saint Petersburg plant in Russia for the initial start up.
The glass has proven to me the most optimistic method to even attempt this little experiment with postive results so far on shave #9(2.5 passes) with a British 1950's Gillette Rocket delivered DFS which is normal for this razor! August 2/2018

Quite a small target to try and improve!

 

[Dzaw]

I tried diamond .25 micron diamond paste(that is one of the smallest diamond paste you can buy) on leather, denim and tried to strop a DE blade 1 yr back with total failure IMO- it seemed to blunt the edge, you must remember that the final edge is measured in millionths of a inch small enough you need a high powered microscope to even see it properly. I also tried the diamond paste in the glass and the blade did not work properly afterwards-failed to restore edge. They actually add a platinum coating to give the tiny edge strength and smoothness from my gathering information from others who helped work on the Gillette P&G Saint Petersburg plant in Russia for the initial start up.

That tracks with what I was saying - an abrasive would only be helpful if you had the exact correct angle. Hand stropping or the glass just wouldn't do it, you would need the factory angle. That's why straight razors are stropped with their spine in contact with the strop and only the weight of the blade - it gives the same angle and pressure every stroke so you don't grind off the incredibly fine edge, which would blunt the edge and ruin the shave.

The glass without abrasive, just wet, will help "iron out" when the edge wants to roll, which it will do on a very tiny scale.

 

[Ron R]

That tracks with what I was saying - an abrasive would only be helpful if you had the exact correct angle. Hand stropping or the glass just wouldn't do it, you would need the factory angle. That's why straight razors are stropped with their spine in contact with the strop and only the weight of the blade - it gives the same angle and pressure every stroke so you don't grind off the incredibly fine edge, which would blunt the edge and ruin the shave.

The glass without abrasive, just wet, will help "iron out" when the edge wants to roll, which it will do on a very tiny scale.

A lot of what you have mentioned is accurate IMO. To sharpen something the grinding substance has to be harder than the object to be sharpened. I took a Astra SP blade out of the spent blade bank to see if I could scratch & saw that drinking glass and it left no scratches. So this simple trail indicates that the glass surface is harder than the blade edge IMO.
This simple test of hardness indicates it could strop and maybe even sharpen the edge a bit at least in theory. This little experiment is getting interesting for me at least & time will tell soon.( I have the time )
The glass surface grit size is unknown of coarse and maybe I will indulge in research on that unknown.

 

[Dzaw]

A lot of what you have mentioned is accurate IMO. To sharpen something the grinding substance has to be harder than the object to be sharpened. I took a Astra SP blade out of the spent blade bank to see if I could scratch & saw that drinking glass and it left no scratches. So this simple trail indicates that the glass surface is harder than the blade edge IMO.
This simple test of hardness indicates it could strop and maybe even sharpen the edge a bit at least in theory. This little experiment is getting interesting for me at least & time will tell soon.( I have the time )

The glass surface grit size is unknown of coarse and maybe I will indulge in research on that unknown.

I would be really curious to find out what the 'grit' level of a glass surface is. That seems like a great investigation.

However, I would caution you about drawing too many conclusions about hardness. Geometry, wear, and other mechanical properties of the materials in question are all relevant.

For example, it is entirely possible to sharpen a hardened steel blade with soft sandstone. You will grind away at the stone faster than you will the steel, but you can do it. You can also scratch that glass with a piece of sandstone. When you sharpen blades (be they razors, knives, chisels, etc) on Japanese water stones, you also grind the stone surface, which is why they need to be flattened periodically.

While the grit level of the glass is a really neat point of curiosity, I really don't think the mode of action you have observed is an abrasive one. I really think what you are doing is a plastic deformation type of action on a very minute level.

Razors (as has already been mentioned) have an incredibly fine edge. The downside to incredibly fine edges is the geometry required to achieve them does not provide support for that edge, so it rolls over very easily with not much use. That rolling is a form of plastic deformation (bending). When you iron the edge out on the glass, you are in essence bending the edge back to straight, or at least, nearly so.

If the mode of action were abrasive, then you would get the same results you got with the diamond paste - it would dull the edge, ruining it for shaving.

 

[Ron R]

If the mode of action were abrasive, then you would get the same results you got with the diamond paste - it would dull the edge, ruining it for shaving.

Knowing that the glass surface is harder than the possible blade edge I decided to improve this little experiment and marked off 1/2 of the glass and taking my Diamond paste .25 micron(.000009 of a inch) decided to thatch pattern the inside surface with diamonds by the thousands that are trapped in the paste. After this make shift thatch pattern was done I cleaned the paste up and cleaned as good as possible the glass. Know I have a glass surface on the inside that has a know surface grit size and will see if it can still work. You would never see the scratched surface to the naked eye. Diamonds are much sharper & harder than glass from hardness tables. The drinking glass finish when held up to my bathroom lights indicated not a perfect finish from Manufacturing to my eyes so I will take that also into consideration.(Its not a perfect world when it comes drinking glasses.)

 

[Ron R]

Aug 5 2018- Shave #12>Astra SP > Still tinkering with the makeshift glass strop hone, I have a jewelers loupe 30 X 60 magnification that help these eyes of mine, the blade does not show any chips out of the blade yet. The razor I used was a Razorock Mission Mid aggressiveness 5-5.5/10 IMO and it performed reasonable for a DFS considering the coating of the blade has mostly disappeared. No nicks or weepers yet on this shave, I have been mostly concentrating on 3 razors Gillette new long comb, Razorock Mission and Gillette SS British and American. I do shave every day so change is noticeable of coarse on this blade and its reasonably sharp for my beard type & did the job. To reach higher # of shaves and to simulate what the old timers were doing I might stay with the Gillette New long comb 1930's & Gillette SS speeds milder razors to stay with the dirty thirties theme and WW2 scarcity of metals for the war effort. The Gillette New long comb to me is a 4.5-5.2/10 aggressive razor where the Gillette SS are 4-4.5/10 on aggressiveness.

 

[Ron R]

I was watching some You tube videos on razors under a microscope because the human eye is limited to seeing great detail. This chap had a very elaborate microscope for checking straight edge razors he sharpens for customers. He takes permanent markers and applies the ink to the edge to highlight what is happening when he is sharpening. I decided to do the same with my little glass strop hone to see how the sweet spot is getting stropped and honed. This a feather blade that has not been used for a while and the picture shows the area being honed and is shinny and highlighted with the ink gone after 20 cycles of stropping left to right and backwards and forwards. The blade had 4 shaves and still cuts free standing hair on my arm and so it will be used for some shaves in the future!
Something to do on a boring Sunday evening.

 

[stone and strop]

Obviously it is making decent contact. Interesting experiment.
I am interested to see how an untreated glass approach fairs.
Thanks

 

[Ad Astra]

Very cool! Especially the electron microscope pic.

Was going to mention how my commercial brush-sharpening device was a failure, but this is more interesting ...


AA

 

[Ron R]

Obviously it is making decent contact. Interesting experiment.
I am interested to see how an untreated glass approach fairs.
Thanks

Try not to totally bottom the blade out in the hot water when swishing because it will not make edge contact IMO. I got a DFS< this morning but nothing spectacular, its still snipping hairs but a few places it struggles, but that was normal with new blades after 1 or 2 complete shaves. The inside diameter is 1.875 inches so if you decide to tinker something close in that range. I also put some elastics around this glass so it stays in the hand easier.( don't want to drop it and have a clean up.)

 

[Ron R]

Delusions About Shaving (Jan, 1933) (Jan, 1933)

Delusions About Shaving

By J. G. Pratt

The author of this article has gained an international reputation for his remarkable work in high-powered microscopic photography, as Scientific Photographer for the Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. This article was prepared by special arrangement with the editors of this publication.

AMONG countless thousands of men who shave every morning before breakfast, probably few phases of the process equal in importance the factor of one’s own imagination.

In the following paragraphs it is not my intention to criticise any one’s personal habits, but merely to present a few scientific facts to help the man who does his own shaving, and perhaps guide him in the purchase of new razor accessories.

Many men continue to run a worn-out blade through a decrepit stropping device which, in its palmy days, had a negligible effect in the matter of improving the edge; and they imagine that they are thereby getting a first-class shave.

One man of my acquaintance, and a scientist at that, allows his used blades to collect in a bathroom receptacle for two years; and then pays his small boy thirty-five cents to rejuvenate them on about the least efficient stropping device I know of. And he is all set, he tells me, for another two years of comfortable shaving.

After a blade has been used and the pores in the steel are exposed to ordinary bathroom moisture rust and erosion (Fig. 1) in less than a month will so eat away the edge that little short of professional honing will enable that blade to mow again into a stubborn beard. And so this scientist’s claim will have to remain just another be-lieve-it-or-not.

If you wish to test the efficiency of your stropper (and there is nothing much better than a ten-cent holder and the old-fashioned razor strop), start with two new blades which you know should give a certain number of comfortable shaves. Use only one edge of each; you can mark them with a file if necessary. Use one on one side of the face without stropping; on the other side, strop the blade after each shave. If both blades begin to pull about the same time, you may know that the stropping is having little or no effect.

I hear many men, who claim to be razorwise, say that stropping the blade on the palm of the hand is all that is necessary to insure another smooth shave.

If there is any virtue in this process at all, it lies in its tendency to dry the blade; and perhaps the natural oil in the skin may tend to prevent the blade from rusting and becoming worse. But as far as sharpening it is concerned, Bah! The stropping devices have rollers of hard leather, in which-is incorporated an abrasive material; and, even with these, unless there is proper tension and a slicing motion, they have little effect in the matter of sharpening the edge.

I often hear it said that dipping the blade in hot water adds materially to the keenness of the edge; and advocates of this procedure cite the fact that it is followed by the professional barber.

It is true that the barber who adheres to the tenets of modern sanitation dips his blade in hot water —boiling water in fact—not to sharpen it however, but to sterilize it against possible germs. If there were any appreciable effect from the hot water, it would be in an adverse direction; for heat expands, and the edge of a blade enlarged a billion diameters would approximate in sharpness the blunt prow of a battleship.

Hot water on the face instead of the razor, however, tends to soften the beard and permits the razor to cut with greater ease.

A few years ago someone discovered that rubbing a safety blade around, inside a tumbler of water, sharpened it; and this idea has spread so rapidly that it is doubtless making considerable inroads into the business of the legitimate stropping machines. (Fig. 2.)

From the dawn of the razor industry it has been believed that the edge of the blade was endowed with microscopic teeth; that these became bent over; and that stropping brought them back into alignment, permitting further comfortable shaving —and drubbing on the concave surface of the tumbler would seem to accomplish the same result.

I have shown in a preceding article (January, 1932, issue) that the teeth on a razor blade are in the same category with the “hoopsnake” and the bunnies which lay our Easter eggs.

Under a microscope magnifying 1,000 diameters (Fig. 3), the edge appears perfectly straight; at 2,000 diameters and beyond, the edge appears wavy or scalloped (Fig. 4) according to the nature of the steel and the processes employed in its manufacture.

There are no teeth to straighten up, although the edge is bent over and blunted by shaving, as seen in Fig. 5; and there are two ways in which this can be corrected.

The blunted fibers can be worn down on a hone; or else, as with the stropping devices, they can be pushed

back into place toward the edge, as seen in Fig. 6.

It is these bent-over and blunted fibers which cause the blade to pull, and to merely compress them, by rubbing on a SMOOTH surface, would tend to leave a ridge where there should be a clean sharp edge. The process could not be expected to have a very beneficial effect.

In some cases, however, the tumbler actually does tend to sharpen the blade, but to a very mild degree; and I would venture a guess that the vast majority who are resorting to this practice are receiving no benefit from it at all.

With heavy blades, sufficient pressure can be exerted upon the edge to compress the bulged fibers a little and with such blades (the Gem, Metro, etc.) I have noted sufficient improvement to give me an extra shave; although further use of the tumbler proved futile.

With thin blades (such as Gillette, Probak, etc.) if there has been any improvement in the edge from the tumbler trick it has been too slight for me to be sure of it; and the reason is apparent from Fig. 7. The slightest pressure tends to bend the blade and throw the cutting edge out of contact with the glass; and, if it is bent to the contour of the tumbler, as seen in Fig. 8, it might just as well be rubbed on a flat surface.

In spite of what I consider ample proof to the contrary, I can point you out a dozen men of merely my own acquaintance who will declare that a turn or two in the tumbler is all that is necessary to insure a great number of perfect shaves.

If you want a better shave, throw away the tumbler and take a new blade; or else invest in a ten-cent holder, and strop your used blades, as you used to do the old straight razor.

One reason why I have dwelt at length upon the tumbler trick is that, at the present time, there are being put on the market devices which work upon the same principle; and, if you wish to spend good money for them, it will only go to show that the famous utterance is as true today as it was in the days of Barnum.

The above remarks about the tumbler, however, do not apply to certain various honing devices, which are of similar shape, and are also making their appearance in ever increasing numbers.

Although with these the average person will bend the blade to the concave surface, and therefore secure no results, they really have considerable merit if used properly.

With a heavy blade it is possible to perform a certain amount of grinding; but the blade should afterward be smoothed up on a regular stropper. With thin blades, even the slight pressure necessary to move the blade back and forth is generally sufficient to bend the edge out of contact, with the result that no improvement can be expected.

This difficulty can be overcome, however, by placing on top of the thin blade a flat plate of proper size, so that pressure upon the hone will be exerted upon the outside edges, Fig. 9.

With even greater rapidity than the tumbler trick, the notion has spread that a blade can be sharpened by drawing it between two steel balls.

A blade pressed up snug between the balls and looked at through a binocular microscope shows clearly, as seen in Fig. 10, that the cutting edge does not touch anything; whether the supposed sharpening is performed by magic or otherwise, I have not been able to learn. I have tried all the abracadabras in my limited collection, and have yet to find one that will cause this contraption to give me an extra shave.

Point “C” jams into the contours of the balls before edge “B” gets down into crotch “A.” Pressed with sufficient force, as seen in Fig. 11, contact at “C” separates the balls ; opening up a channel through which the edge “B” travels without hindrance.

If these balls were made about the size of BB-shot, the device might have a chance to do something ; but whether or not it would improve the blade to any great extent, is highly problematical.

Devices similar to the above are being sold by the million, the vendors cluttering vacant-store entrances wherever you go; and, whether the marvelous wood and hair cutting feats performed on a single blade before the gullible public are on the up-and-up, I will have to refer you again to Ripley.

Regarding these demonstrations which we have all watched with interest—to slice into a piece of paper with a new blade would ruin it for shaving purposes; to cut a match stem would so mutilate the edge that nothing short of honing would rectify it; and to hack into a stick of wood, or cut shavings from a piece of lead, and even hope that any treatment whatsoever could ever repair the damage, would be the height of folly.

Yet this is the demonstration used to sell certain abrasive dope for the razor strop ; and the legerdemain, which permits the agent to slice off a single hair after the blade has been thus abused, I have never been able to solve. If some reader will enlighten me, I will be greatly obliged.

I will say this for their product, however, that to an intelligent public such high-power salesmanship should not be necessary; for the blade holder and the little strop which accompany the stick of dope are well worth a quarter, and are all that is necessary to insure perfect reconditioning of used blades.

One fact that I should like to bring out, in closing, is that there are probably few things in life as variable as men’s whiskers ; and, although they all seem to fall before the straight blade of the barber, such is not the case with the modern safety razor.

A razor that will give smooth and comfortable shaving to one person may be entirely inadequate on a beard and skin of different texture.

Doubtless seeking a way out of the depression, new firms are springing up almost over night and are flooding the market with blades whose names are legion. But I am glad to say that their products are getting better all the time; and, instead of two or three shaves as heretofore, the tendency is to produce blades that will give many times that number; but you must find the one which suits your individual needs.

The man whom I employ to conduct most of my shaving experiments—on account of his tender skin and bristles which would do justice to a modern Moses—came to me recently highly elated with the fact that he had just gotten fifteen perfect shaves, without stropping from the Whoosis Razor, which had just come out.

Of course I secured one, to add to my collection if nothing more, but one shave showed that it was not for me. I drew blood in three places, besides nipping off a slice of my lip.

Although I have a cabinet full of razors, all the modern ones, and ancient ones dating back to the Roman days, I must confess that, when shaving for comfort and not for some scientific test, I use probably the cheapest blade on the market (as it retails four for a dime at the ten-cent stores). With this blade shaving is such a quick and pleasant procedure that I have tried to interest some of my friends ; but, more often than not, after a single trial, they return it with an adverse report.

3 comments

1. hip2b2 says:July 25, 20069:00 pm
   I have a collection on about a dozen sharpeners of different design. It is interesting to me (having grown up in an era of disposable everything) that people were at one time reluctant to dispose of something that was DESIGNED to be thrown out.
   saysecember 15, 20124:46 pm
2. […] some more old, related pics. (DE […]
   
   
   
3. says:February 15, 20164:45 pm
   […] article (from Jan 1933 Popular Mechanix) on the futility of honing DE blades. Worth reading, since the delusion that it works is perennial. (The magazine at the time was called Science and […]

 

[stone and strop]

Try not to totally bottom the blade out in the hot water when swishing because it will not make edge contact IMO. I got a DFS< this morning but nothing spectacular, its still snipping hairs but a few places it struggles, but that was normal with new blades after 1 or 2 complete shaves. The inside diameter is 1.875 inches so if you decide to tinker something close in that range. I also put some elastics around this glass so it stays in the hand easier.( don't want to drop it and have a clean up.)

I have no intention of trying this. I am a straight razor user. I do find this interesting though.
I have however purchased a birth year slim just in case I am unable to shave with a straight in my later years. Not sure I will try to dress my blades at that time but who knows.

 

[Ron R]

I came across this youtube video and thought some would enjoy it, I think it was a thread on blade care and there was shortages of certain things like razor blades! The first 1-2 minutes this guy buys one blade at the local chemist(drug store) and I recall its during ww2 in 1944 and possible rationing. Stropping was more common in those days, things were not so disposable as our mind set is different at this juncture in human history. Great film for its time, Enjoy!

 

[SGWB]

I have a little Aloxite hone from the 19 somthing or others. It works reasonably well on vintage carbon steel blades, but I've yet to discover the secret to getting a smooth, comfortable edge from it. It does work better with a little shaving cream and water.

 

[Ron R]

I have a little Aloxite hone from the 19 somthing or others. It works reasonably well on vintage carbon steel blades, but I've yet to discover the secret to getting a smooth, comfortable edge from it. It does work better with a little shaving cream and water.

Thanks for the information and I will try your suggestion with the shaving cream.
I do not think you can match the sharpness of the factory edges + coatings with this method, I think it was a fade & survival instinct when times were tough & folks resorted to simple utilitarian effective methods (glass method works for a Sociable acceptable shave. SAS)that got them through until better times IMO. I'm glade we are not there yet in a bad down turn like those two events and who would want them. I'm kind of experiencing the shave of a person with possibly little means & frugal for that era and still knowing I have a 8 yr supply of blades approximately that are sharp and factory honed & stropped.