Greetings, I have just pick up a couple new packs and am confused by the new technology mentioned on the blade's package. Sputtered? Does anybody out there know the benefits of sputtering a blade? and how, for example would a sputtered blade compare to a "non" sputtered blade. Maybe it means something different in the foreign language? Mystifying.
Stumped by Sputtered
- Thread starter Joe blow
- Start date
Standard practice since the process was developed in the 60's. Blades are placed in a very low pressure chamber filled with argon/helium (or some other mixture of gasses, sometimes nitrogen) and a high DC voltage is applied across the gap between blades and a metal "target" of the alloy to be "sputtered" onto the blades (or anything else conductive).
High energy electrons fly off the items to be "sputtered" and hit the "target" metal, causing atoms to fly off and they plate onto the blades. Needless to say, only the actual hone at the edge is coated, no need to waste material.
This can also be accomplished by the use of a plasma "torch" using inductively coupled energy transfer via an argon stream and some big high voltage high (RF) frequency magnets, and that's probably what's used commercially, no need for a hard vacuum.
Done properly, the impact velocity of the metal atoms is high enough to make a shallow alloy at the surface of the blade rather than just a coating if that is an advantage.
This process allows stainless steel razor blades to be coated or alloyed with chrome, platinum. iridium, or tungsten. modern blades are also coated with diamond like carbon and teflon.
Peter
High energy electrons fly off the items to be "sputtered" and hit the "target" metal, causing atoms to fly off and they plate onto the blades. Needless to say, only the actual hone at the edge is coated, no need to waste material.
This can also be accomplished by the use of a plasma "torch" using inductively coupled energy transfer via an argon stream and some big high voltage high (RF) frequency magnets, and that's probably what's used commercially, no need for a hard vacuum.
Done properly, the impact velocity of the metal atoms is high enough to make a shallow alloy at the surface of the blade rather than just a coating if that is an advantage.
This process allows stainless steel razor blades to be coated or alloyed with chrome, platinum. iridium, or tungsten. modern blades are also coated with diamond like carbon and teflon.
Peter
Thanks for the explanation!
Wow. Learn something new everyday. Sputtered in my world is what the girlfriend does when a new batch of shave gear shows up.
Mark
Mark
Thank you for the informative response.
Until I read @psfred 's explanation, I too had assumed it meant something different, such as edges guaranteed to cause weepers. For this reason I made a point to steer clear. And if by chance it meant something about our GF/wives (I hadn't considered that) I definitely think it's good to avoid this blade.
Great info...! But, do they shave better? Only cw62803 will know when he does a blade vs blade test. Please do one CW.!
Neat!
Even back in the '80's when I worked R&D Engineering in semiconductor manufacturing, sputtering was already a well-understood and established procedure. We used it in semiconductor wafer fabrication to apply a fine layer of aluminum as an interconnecting material for the integrated circuits.
As equipment was replaced by newer & better, the old obsolete likely made its' way to 3rd world locations for applications such as blade edge coating.
As equipment was replaced by newer & better, the old obsolete likely made its' way to 3rd world locations for applications such as blade edge coating.
Razor blades have been coated using the electron impact system for quite some time -- if I remember correctly (rather chancy these days, eh?) coated blades showed up in the mid 60's. Electron impact coating of metals was well established by them in the electronics industry as small scale integrated circuits appears about the same time. Same technology, different application.
