While Chamm's points about the ease of manufacture making zamak attractive to companies like Muhle is probably correct, there is another reason. If Muhle switched to brass or steel, their manufacturing costs would go up, and they'd likely only ever sell one razor to each customer. If they make their razors from cheap alloy, when the first razor rots or breaks the customer will buy a replacement. It's a bit like the everlasting lightbulb theory, sell a product with an inherently finite lifespan and you'll sell more of them.
Zamak hating seems to be trendy these days
- Thread starter billobob
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Also for those saying the Weber is a clone of an Edwin Jagger. It's not. They are very different. Design wise it is almost exact to a Merkur 23c. If you hold them side by side they look similar besides the weber having a slightly thicker handle.
Low volume, high price units. I love ATT, but the razor head is CNC milled, one head at a time. I don't know this as fact, but my best guess is that they couldn't make more than 5-10 of those razors per day, and even that might be high. I suspect this is the exact difficulty that Joe is running into with the RR Stealth Slant. It isn't necessarily that the manufacturing cost is too high, it's that CNC milling doesn't scale well for high-volume production. Really brass doesn't scale well, either, but when Gillette was selling 10 million razors per year, they could afford to sink a LOT of cash into manufacturing.
You are absolutely correct, it was late, and I was having difficulty thinking of the design that Weber patterned their razor after.
Anybody else reading this conversation hear something similar to this?
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Mmmmmm. Turkey. Salmon. Chicken. Now I'm just hungry.
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I have a few Zamak razors, and provided I don't drop them they will likely outlast me. Lately however I've been on a stainless buying binge. 
I owned a gold hoffritz and the level of finish and the quality of the actual casting on that was so much more crisp. I think a lot of Merkur's woes come from stretching their molds way too far leaving a non-ideal plating surface.
Your experience mirrors mine.
Adding another anecdote to the fire, I own several zamak razors that are doing well. My Mühle R89 is about five years old. It has been dropped at least twice without visible damage. I have owned a couple of 34c razors and a 37c, none of which suffered from plating flaws. I have a vintage Merkur slant with a zamak head, probably 40-50 years old and in excellent condition. This Probak is also pretty nice, and probably about 85 years old:
Discussions like this one tend to suffer from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporting_bias - more specifically an outcome bias. We hear about broken or flawed razors much more often than we hear about the ones that do just fine. Naturally this skews our perception. But remember that companies like Merkur, Mühle, and Jagger make quite a few razors every year. We have no way to know what the real numbers are. But say that combined sales are 100,000 every year, and 100 of those razors fail within five years. That would be a bad experience for the unlucky buyers, and the retailer should take care of them. The manufacturer should strive for zero defects. But that still leaves 99,900 happy shavers.
Discussions like this one tend to suffer from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporting_bias - more specifically an outcome bias. We hear about broken or flawed razors much more often than we hear about the ones that do just fine. Naturally this skews our perception. But remember that companies like Merkur, Mühle, and Jagger make quite a few razors every year. We have no way to know what the real numbers are. But say that combined sales are 100,000 every year, and 100 of those razors fail within five years. That would be a bad experience for the unlucky buyers, and the retailer should take care of them. The manufacturer should strive for zero defects. But that still leaves 99,900 happy shavers.
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I agree with this statement completely. Merkur molds, at least the 37c, 34c and the few others I've seen, probably should have been thrown out decades ago. One of my very first threads on B&B was a complaint about the metal flash that they didn't bother to polish off before they plated it. I have never seen a Merkur razor that didn't have a sloppy cast. (Excepting the adjustables, which have newer molds.) I would bet that some of the molds they use to cast heads today have been in production since the 1950's.
I never really connected that with the Zamak issues, but now that you say it, it makes absolute sense, and I am certain you are correct. Those bits of flash get chrome plated, then break off, creating a perfect entry point in the chrome plating for the alkaline soap.
Adding another anecdote to the fire, I own several zamak razors that are doing well. My Mühle R89 is about five years old. It has been dropped at least twice without visible damage. I have owned a couple of 34c razors and a 37c, none of which suffered from plating flaws. I have a vintage Merkur slant with a zamak head, probably 40-50 years old and in excellent condition. This Probak is also pretty nice, and probably about 85 years old:
Discussions like this one tend to suffer from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporting_bias - more specifically an outcome bias. We hear about broken or flawed razors much more often than we hear about the ones that do just fine. Naturally this skews our perception. But remember that companies like Merkur, Mühle, and Jagger make quite a few razors every year. We have no way to know what the real numbers are. But say that combined sales are 100,000 every year, and 100 of those razors fail within five years. That would be a bad experience for the unlucky buyers, and the retailer should take care of them. The manufacturer should strive for zero defects. But that still leaves 99,900 happy shavers.
Finally.
My newly acquired 34C is probably one of the nicest DE's I've ever had. The plating is really superb. It's at least as good as any EJ I've ever owned. It also shaves great.
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Actually, I also blame all of the sloppy crooked blade tolerances on the progress and futur razors on this as well.
Here is a fun reference: left, vintage hoffritz, right, 80s era merkur slant. Even in the 80s, look how much more crisp the level of finish was, particularly in the corners inside the safety bars... The teeth on the comb on the hoffritz are way more defined, however. These are also both zamak and old yet not turning into black dust...
Here is a fun reference: left, vintage hoffritz, right, 80s era merkur slant. Even in the 80s, look how much more crisp the level of finish was, particularly in the corners inside the safety bars... The teeth on the comb on the hoffritz are way more defined, however. These are also both zamak and old yet not turning into black dust...
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That's quite good for a probak, actually. They tend to get a touch of pest in the nooks of text. Again, I am guessing as the molds got used more and more such a fine detail began to degrade.
Adding another anecdote to the fire, I own several zamak razors that are doing well. My Mühle R89 is about five years old. It has been dropped at least twice without visible damage. I have owned a couple of 34c razors and a 37c, none of which suffered from plating flaws. I have a vintage Merkur slant with a zamak head, probably 40-50 years old and in excellent condition. This Probak is also pretty nice, and probably about 85 years old:
Discussions like this one tend to suffer from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporting_bias - more specifically an outcome bias. We hear about broken or flawed razors much more often than we hear about the ones that do just fine. Naturally this skews our perception. But remember that companies like Merkur, Mühle, and Jagger make quite a few razors every year. We have no way to know what the real numbers are. But say that combined sales are 100,000 every year, and 100 of those razors fail within five years. That would be a bad experience for the unlucky buyers, and the retailer should take care of them. The manufacturer should strive for zero defects. But that still leaves 99,900 happy shavers.
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Some makers the alloy was just not quite right. Every rotbart with zinc components seems rotten to some degree.
Adding another anecdote to the fire, I own several zamak razors that are doing well. My Mühle R89 is about five years old. It has been dropped at least twice without visible damage. I have owned a couple of 34c razors and a 37c, none of which suffered from plating flaws. I have a vintage Merkur slant with a zamak head, probably 40-50 years old and in excellent condition. This Probak is also pretty nice, and probably about 85 years old:
Discussions like this one tend to suffer from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporting_bias - more specifically an outcome bias. We hear about broken or flawed razors much more often than we hear about the ones that do just fine. Naturally this skews our perception. But remember that companies like Merkur, Mühle, and Jagger make quite a few razors every year. We have no way to know what the real numbers are. But say that combined sales are 100,000 every year, and 100 of those razors fail within five years. That would be a bad experience for the unlucky buyers, and the retailer should take care of them. The manufacturer should strive for zero defects. But that still leaves 99,900 happy shavers.
I'm going to add more fuel. ....I have a few Stahly live DE razors that looks better than most newer models. They have held up great.
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Good observation ...Maybe they don't add key ingredient to the metal mix as other top maker's do?
Btw ... were pre WWII Rotbarts made of brass, or they were always Zamak?
I have an OC that I like very much, I think it's brass ...
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I have that exact Probak head and it is pristine just like yours. My understanding is that the plating process that Probak used was really good; probably superior to what Merkur is currently using.
[quick threadjack]That Probak is one of my best shavers. Really a great DE head.[/quick threadjack]
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I confirmed with Stan at Above The Tie that each razor head takes about an hour to machine. Spot on, Craig!
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