What does cooking have to do with shaving? A lot!

[GlennConti]

Well, 1969 WAS the year of the pinnacle of human achievement - Apollo 11 and "one small step."

Apollo 11 - Wikipedia

Gillette/shaving, too, was its pinnacle razor-wise, though soaps have continued to improve somewhat.

Perhaps the forumite with the electron microscope can chime in, but it seems possible the coating lasts long enough to do some good after all. As with the referenced spacecraft's ablation shield, in disintegration it achieves its designer's goal.

AA

As far as 1969 being the pinnacle achievement... It seems the blades you are using if they flake away PTFE so quickly are not up the tech Gillette had in 1969. Just saying... if that's your current experience.

As far as forumites with electron microscopes... Thanks for the idea! I do have a friend of a friend that operates one. You see... these little exchanges CAN BE of value!

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

This is very interesting, Glenn! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Ad Astra]

There was a forum member who researched a number of blades' edges using electron microscopy ...


AA

 

[KQY61]

Hi,

One would see just fine using an optical microscope with polarized light. It would actually be more difficult to use an electron microscope. Digging in too deep, as it were.

Stan

 

[Potrzebie]

It's still unclear, though, if a blade is still 50% good when an open-comb user tosses it.

"I once went fishing with Salvador Dali. He used a dotted line. He caught every other fish." -- Steven Wright

 

[Ad Astra]

I like it!

Yet if the teeth of the comb cover blade surface - and they do - it must be so.

AA

 

[KQY61]

Hi,

I have been giving this some thought lately. My professional work involves root cause failure analysis of electronic products. Now, this mostly involves the electronic parts and associated controlling software. But, in about a quarter of the failures it involves the mechanics, and in another quarter or so, chemical issues.

Anyway, there I was shaving and thinking about just what is happening between the blade edge and the rest of the world. And, how I have run Personna Lab Blue and Med Prep blades during various One Blade February challenges. I have done this twice in my Fasan DoubleSlant and once in a Gillette NEW Short Comb.

What I experienced is that a blade would run 10-12 days and then start tugging as it cut. If I kept on, it would smooth out until 20-23 days and then the ability for it to cut would drop off.

I also ran one time with a Personna 74 in the Fasan and it went 45 days before it began to lose the ability to cut.

I don't know about the P74, but I bet what I was experiencing was the mortal Personna blades are losing their coating around Day 10 and then losing their edge around Day 20.

Stan

 

[GlennConti]

Hi,

I have been giving this some thought lately. My professional work involves root cause failure analysis of electronic products. Now, this mostly involves the electronic parts and associated controlling software. But, in about a quarter of the failures it involves the mechanics, and in another quarter or so, chemical issues.

Anyway, there I was shaving and thinking about just what is happening between the blade edge and the rest of the world. And, how I have run Personna Lab Blue and Med Prep blades during various One Blade February challenges. I have done this twice in my Fasan DoubleSlant and once in a Gillette NEW Short Comb.

What I experienced is that a blade would run 10-12 days and then start tugging as it cut. If I kept on, it would smooth out until 20-23 days and then the ability for it to cut would drop off.

I also ran one time with a Personna 74 in the Fasan and it went 45 days before it began to lose the ability to cut.

I don't know about the P74, but I bet what I was experiencing was the mortal Personna blades are losing their coating around Day 10 and then losing their edge around Day 20.

Stan

Hey Stan, I always pitch the blade after about 7 to 10 days. So I never experience what you do with the blade "smoothing out". Are you saying the quality of the shave was like a inverted "camelback" or a smoothed "W". I wouldn't have thought that. My experience is a sort of go-no-go. I expect good shaves until the coating is gone then tugging and time to pitch.

 

[KQY61]

Hi,

Yes. It goes along just fine and then had some tug. But, go another day or two, and the tug goes away for about as long as it wasn't tugging to begin with. It is a fairly common report during the One Blade February runs.

I hadn't given it a thought. This is simply shaving after all. But here we are chatting about alloys and coatings, and I did get to thinking there....if the coating made it smoother, but then began to Go Away....that would produce drag....until it was mostly gone. After that, we'd have the base metal by itself which ought to have decent cutting until the edge wore down.

What I need to do now is take a new blade into my electronics workshop here at the house and see if I can see the coating under my optical microscope. It has polarized light source and objective filter, so there ought to be a different reflectivity of whatever coating material and the base metal. In effect, by changing the angle of the light, I ought to be able to see it.

I have basic equipment here at home, including optics. What I do not have are the advanced things like a laser material analyzer or an electron microscope. I can analyze about 90% of what I need to here, and I take the rest to another lab (which my clients get to pay for).

Stan