Category Archives: Patents

Single edge razor of of simple and economical construction

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From time to time I come across patents that I’m sad didn’t make it into manufacture… and the single edge razor Mr Frank Pelosi was granted a patent for in May 1931 is one of them. It just looks, well, nice.
Mr Pelosi didn’t claim that his razor would be the best thing since sliced bread, nor that it would be a quantum leap over other razors… just that it would be, well, simpler and better. In his own words:

…an improved razor of this type which comprises a relatively few parts of simple and economical construction, which permits easy and speedy insertion or removal of a separable blade, and which may be small in size and light in weight without sacrifice of operative efficiency.

It’s was a simple twist-to-open open comb razor, which indexed the blade on a rivet mounted on the bottom plate, while the top cap was made from sheet metal and tightened by a knurled knob on the end of the handle.

…the razor comprises a handle 10 having an axial opening 11 therethrough, a guard member 12 mounted in one end of the handle, a rotatable knob or lock nut 13 at the opposite end of the handle, a lock plate 14 arranged to cooperate with the guard to hold a blade 15 therebetween, and an adjusting. stem 16 extending through the hollow handle and having one end engaging a threaded opening 17 in the nut 13 and its opposite end passing through an aperture 18 in the guard 12 and secured to the lock plate. as by a rivet or pin 19 which projects through an opening 20 in plate 14 and is headed over on the top surface of the plate. The stem and lock plate may thus be moved longitudinally of the handle by rotating the lock nut to secure the blade in working position (Fig. 3) or to separate the plate from the guard member and permit insertion or removal of the blade (Fig. 4).

Overall Mr Pelosi’s razor gives the impression of a well though out, workmanlike razor with no frills and only a little thrills. What killed it in the marked was probably the fact that it required it’s own special blades, requiring setting up manufacture of not just the razors, but also the blades.

Safety razor with covered blade tabs

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Show of hands everyone; how many of you have – at some point – given yourself a nick or cut from a exposed blade tab on a double edged blade? I suspect most of us have done it by accident at least once which is why some safety razors covers the tabs.
Back in late January 1930 – ninety years ago pretty much on the date – Albin K Peterson was granted the earliest patent I’m aware of that covers blade tabs… literally. Mr Peterson had noticed the inherent danger of the tabs, although possible not when he was shaving his beard… to quote his patent:

The Gillette type of safety razor is highly desirable because the blades can be replaced and a sharp blade always had at a small cost. In these days of scant attire for women, they often employ a safety razor for shaving unsightly hair from the arm pits. It has been found dangerous, however, to use the average safety razor, whether the Gillette or other types, because the sharp corners of the blade protrude sufficiently to cut the skin when contacting with a cupped or depressed area, such as the arm pit.

So… body-shaming the ladies in your patent filing? Classy. Anyhow – the invention don’t seem all that non-intuitive to me in hindsight, even if the patent clerk found it novel enough to grant a patent. Mr Peterson’s big idea was just a change to the shape of the top cap, made to include an overhang that covered the blade tabs. Granted; the overhangs were a bit on the large side, curved to slide smoothly in an armpit, but still just overhangs.
Interestingly enough, Mr Peterson also wanted to modify the base plate slightly to ensure a snugger fit with his improved top cap… in his own words:

The guard member consists of a curved body portion 6 to which may be secured, by shaft 2 protruding into the handle 7 and figures 6 and 7. The prongs 9 are shortened just sufficiently to fit snugly within the shields 4 thus, together with the latter, forming a complete housing for the corner of the razor blade. The prongs 8 are preferably of such a length that when the razor is assembled the tips of the prongs will be in a line forming a tangent with the outer surface of the shields 4.

It is, of course, possible to merely reduce the length of the four end prongs of the guard member of the standard Gillette type of safety razor so that it will fit into my improved blade receiving member. Thus by providing my improved blade receiving member with the standard Gillette type of safety razor, the guard member of which has, been altered as above described, the user can alternatively employ the set for shaving ‘said to be adapted to shave any part of the human body without fear of injury thereto.

Today double edged razors with covered blade tabs is fairly common, but I’ve yet to seen any with such massive overhangs as Mr Peterson suggested.

Safety razor in which it is unnecessary to separate the parts to insert the blade

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Simple is often better – after all, it seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove.*
So what can be simpler than a one piece razor that you can insert and remove the blade from without opening it up? Or to go one better; such a razor, but made cheaply and easy from a single piece of sheet metal?
Walter P Keene invented just such a razor, and filed for a patent in the middle of 1925. He did this by a couple of simple metal stampings that fit one inside the other, with a helical slot for the blade. Or as the patent text describes it:

…blade is supported and held between two cylindrical surfaces with the blade edge flexed over an elongated helically cut slot…

The drawing shows how the razor should be held between thumb and fingers, allowing for good control and easy manipulation. The drawing also shows how the outer part of the shell is secured to the inner part with a pair of rivets or bolts, allowing the outer part to rotate in relation the inner part – thus opening and closing it. In the word of the patent text:

In the drawings, numeral 10 designates the outer shell or casing preferably formed of sheet metal in a punch press, consisting of an outer skin contacting surface with a helical cut tapered edge 11, the centers of the radii of this surface forming the axis of the bores formed in the side walls 12 and 13, these walls being preferably formed in planes at right angles to the axis, these walls taking the place of a handle as of the familiar hoe type of safety razor, the walls being grasped as shown by the dotted lines of a hand in Figure 1, a convenient position for use in under arm work, although an equally convenient method is to grasp the rear part of the shells as outlined by line 14:, between the thumb and fingers, either of these methods serving where the handle grasp of an operator is lost.

Supported within the outer shell is a second shell of substantially the same form, drawn of sheet metal, in which the cylindrical and approximated surface to the inner cylindrical surface of shell 10, is struck from radii of less length, so that when they are assembled, there is formed an accurate cylindrical space adapted to receive and hold the razor blade.

It’s worth noting that Mr Keene’s razor required proprietary blades – had he designed it for standard double edged blades (even if only one edge was exposed at any given time), I can actually see this razor being successful. As it is, it seems to have to sunk without a trace.

*) Antoine de Saint Exupéry, in reference to aircraft specifically but all that man do in general.

Another axilla razor – from 1920

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In 1920 Mary M McCaffrey filed a patent for a safety razor for shaving armpits – the earliest such patent I’ve found that has been filed by a lady. Like the underarm razor patented by Joseph J Schermack in 1931 – and the Shermac he later manufactured – Mrs McCaffrey’s razor was round, and for a good reason:

To shave hair from the armpit or any depressed portion of the body with the ordinary straight edge safety or. other razor is more or less unsatisfactory, therefore provide a safety razor which will effectively and safely do such work, and to this end use is made of a circular blade so constructed that it may be flexed as desired.

A lot of the patent goes on to describe the special blade – that could be flexed as desired due to a number of  of elliptical openings placed around the centre – and the slot in it that had to be protected with a guard so the corners didn’t cut. Or as the rather verbose wording of the patent text tries to explain it:

Blade 3 is best illustrated in Fig. 4;, and is provided with a slot 6 to permit greater flexing and also with elliptical openings 12 placed radially in blade 3 to prevent buckling when being made and to assist in allowing appropriate flexing when pressure is placed means of screwing handle 1 on stem 5, which flexing is produced by slightly raised circular, portion 16 on head 2 (exaggerated in drawing) fitting into depressed circular portion 13 on cap 4 (also exaggerated) The center of the raised circular portion 16 on head 2 passes when in position over elliptical openings 12 slightly beyond the wide portion of said openings radially placed producing thereby an even flexing of blade 3, and thus eliminating to a great extent the tendency of circular blades to break on the outer edge thereof.

Clear as mud, as many patent texts are, but the drawing is at least easy to understand.

Judging by the apparent lack of success that McCaffrey’s razor, and the blade of the slightly more successful razor later patented and marketed by Shermack, I suspect that the blade of this razor was overly complicated – making the manufacture of the blades complicated and expensive.

For those who missed the last post i made about an old patent, axilla is the anatomical term for armpit.

A 1917 armpit razor patent

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Ever since society started shaming women into shaving their armpits (around 1915 or thereabouts, as mentioned in a previous post), guys have invented razors for just that use. This is one of the earliest I’ve found, applied for in December 1917 by Mr Oswald T Fleury.
As he states in the patent text:

The practice of removing hairs from the axilla is, at the present time, becoming more predominant and,.in order to accomplish this purpose, he ordinary safety razor is sometimes ’employed but has been found more or less unsatisfactory owing to the fact that access ca mot readily be obtained to the curvature o the arm pit to remove the hairs therefrom with the straight edge blades commonly used.

If you’re not steady in anatomical latin, axilla simply means armpit.
The invention itself isn’t too complicated; a semicircular single edge safety razor with a curvature shaped to fit the armpit – however it is interesting in that it has no top cap, but uses two tabs fitting in corresponding slots cut in the blade and bottom plate to hold the blade secure, and a cup or ring to hold two halves of the handle together. Hopefully that is clearer from the drawing than from the text.

…having a handle with threaded orifice, a flexible slotted circular blade provided with slot with parallel edges and a series of elliptical openings placed radially in said blade, a circular head provided with guard teeth and special guard portion integral therewith to cover slot in Blade, a slightly curved circular raised portion, and an elliptical raised portion all integral therewith, a circular clamping cap member provided with a slightly depressed circular portion and a threaded stem for screwing into threaded orifice provided with handle, substantially as described.

A quick look online finds no indication that this patent ever turned into a marketable product, but there have been a veritable flood of specialised razors for armpits since… some successful, but most not so much.

Shaving Apparatus

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Today I have a very new patent for y’all – so new it’s still technically just a patent application – for a cartridge razor that will get your stubble both coming and going!
Invented by Appiah Kwadwo and applied for in June 2019, this break through in shaving technology is based on cartridges… but very advanced cartridges!

The cartridge includes at least two sub-cartridges connected to each other in a rigid connection or a detachable connection. Each of the sub-cartridges includes one or more blades extending outwardly at an acute angle relative to a face of the sub-cartridge and projecting generally away from a central longitudinal axis of the cartridge. The blades of a first of the two sub-cartridges are parallel to the blades of a second of the two sub-cartridges and positioned in a direction that opposes a direction of the blades of the second of the two sub-cartridges.

Clear as mud? Perchance the patent drawings will make it clearer… or perchance not.

Safety razors and shaving implements were initially made for the purpose of reducing the skill required for injury-free shaving, thereby eliminating the everyday need for a professional barber. As such, several designs have been made over the years to improve the ease of use of shaving implements. From the initial single blade straight edge safety razor design of the 18th century to the more recent triple blade or four blade razor cartridge design, the contemporary razor has undergone several design changes resulting in improved ergonomics, reduced injury risk, and enhanced ease of use.

Well… King Gillette pretty much nailed the idea of making every man his own barber back in 1901 when he applied for his safety razor patent , and I think I’ve shown with my posts on shaving related patents over the years that a lot of inventions that promises to make shaving easier, safer and requiring less skill tends to be evolutionary dead ends and too often much to complex to be easy to manufacture. And if the modern razor cartridge has enhanced ease of use and reduced risk of injuries, to me and many others that comes at the cost of poorer shaves, shave burns, and irritation.

However, the two or more sets of blades included in most safety razor cartridges are unidirectional, for example, angled downward relative to the cartridge. Such a design permits a user to only shave in a single direction necessitating additional maneuvering of the handle, for example, flipping the handle and/or twisting the handle, to shave in an opposing direction, thereby reducing ease of use. A shaving implement, which is designed to allow a user to shave in multiple directions, is therefore desired.

Short answer? No, it is not desired. By pushing on the razor – as opposed to pulling on it – the skin on your face will bunch up and be pushed into the blade, not being pulled taught so the hairs stands out. To me this means that the blades pointing in the other direction will be much more likely to slice you open than the exposed blade tabs on some double edged razors ever will.
On the upside, Mr Kwadwo also includes a drawing showing his new cartridge mounted shavette-style.

If you’re curious and want to read the whole description and look at all the drawings, the patent application to search for is number US20190375122A1.

2020 teaser

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Stay tuned…

Nicholas Testi’s “dispensing tube”

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From time to time you might have good reason to use a brushless cream… but using your hand to put it on makes your hands all sticky and gooey. But the a solution to that problem was patented by Testi Nicholas back in 1939: a roller that replaces the cap of the tube, aiding in the even, controlled application of shaving cream. Or, in the words of the patent:

This invention relates to collapsible tubes for dispensing cream, paste, ointments and the like and consists in a unitary device which may be supplied as part of the tube structure or as an attachment thereto for effectively sealing the tube, except when it is subjected to a discharging pressure, and for controlling and distributing or applying the discharged contents uniformly to the treated surface. An important field of use of my invention is in connection with tubes for. dispensing shaving cream. For purposes of illustration, therefore, the invention will be herein shown as embodied in an attachment to be retained by the user and affixed to the tube in place of the usual screw cap.

The whole invention consists of a frame, into which a distributing roller and a slotted rubber disk sits. The rubber disk keeps the cream from leaking out when there is no pressure on the tube, and the roller is then used to spread the cream evenly across the face.
Even if the original patent was assigned to Gillette it is long expired, so anyone wanting to have a go at this can… someone with some skill and a 3D printer can probably make bespoke dispensing tubes.

Henry J Gaisman’s patent for a folding injector razor

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Imagine, if you will, an injector razor with the spare blades stored in the handle. Now imagine it in such a way that the head will swivel 90 degrees to line up with the spare blades. Got it? Good… that is basically what Henry J Gaisman patented in 1928.

The patent – which was granted in 1932, and assigned to Gillette Safety Razor Company – goes into quite a bit of details.

The numeral 1 indicates a blade holder, and at 2 is a handle shown provided with a reduced portion 2a to which the blade holder is pivotally attached. I have shown a screw 3 pivotally connecting the blade holder and the handle, whereby the blade holder may be turned .at an angle to the handle for shaving, (Fig. 1), and may be turned parallel to the handle to receive and discharge blades, (Figs. 4 and 5). The blade holder has a relatively flat seat 4 upon which the blade 5 may rest with its cutting ed es extending beyond the seat for shaving. Guards for the blade edge are indicated at 6, which guards are shown provided with comblike teeth at 6a in proper position relatively to the blade edges to guard the latter. The guards 6 are connected to the blade holder so as to have movement relatively to the corresponding blade edges, the guards being shown attached to the blade holder material by the connecting pieces 7, and due to resiliency of the meta …the guards may be adjusted toward and from the blade edges. I have illustrated screws 8 operative in threaded bores in the guards, adapted to be rotated against the body of the blade holder for adjusting the guards with respect to the blade edges, (Fig. 2). At 9 is a retainer for the blade to keep the latter pressed against the seat 4. The retainer is attached to the blade holder, as rivets or screws, at 9′, (Fig. 1) and is of resilient material so as to overlie the blade at the free edges 9a of the retainer, said edges being suitably spaced from the seat 4 of the holder to receive the blade in the space therebetween, pressure of the retainer upon the blade keeps the latter on its seat. The corners of the retainer are shown secured to posts 6b near the ends of the guards. To permit the blade to slide along the seat 4 of blade holder 1 and to retain the blade in shaving position I provide a plate 13 that is located between seat 4 and the adjacent end of 10@ handle 2, which plate is provided with tapering projections 14 that are adapted to pass through openings 1a in the blade holder at the seat 4 and t rough registering openings 5a in the blade, (Fig. 8).

Clear as mud, as most patent texts are…
Short version is that the head tilts back, so you can load it from the blade magazine in the handle. The spare blades are kept secure in said handle. Oh, and there is an open comb guard.
The whole package looks like it would make for a pretty neat travel razor, as it folds into a small package, and I can see something like this doing reasonable well today if it was set up to accept a standard injector blade.

Morton G Bunnell and the patent for a Gillette Single Edge safety razor

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Morton G Bunnell had quite a few patents to his name, but only two razors – and only one of those got assigned to Gillette Co at some point.  I think it’s a quite interesting patent, for several reasons.

For starters; it is a patent for a single edge razor – with the patent filed back when Gillette was just getting traction with the double edged blade.
Secondly; it’s for all intents and purposes a single piece razor, although calling it a twist-to-open is stretching the definition a little – or rather a lot.
And thirdly; it’s a patent for a razor without a top cap.
The patent was filed in 1906, but was in limbo for several years until it was finally granted in 1913 – and I have no clue what caused the delay.

The razor is – as can be expected from a single piece, single edge razor – deceptively simple. A handle, containing a spring loaded plunger with a knob on the end to ain in blade removal. A base plate, angled, semicircular cuts in the sides, with a comb on one side as well as a shaped lug in each corner for holding the blade. Blade was inserted and removed by utilising the springiness of the steel, bending it to slip it in under and out from the corner nubs.
Or to quote from the patent text:

…a flat, rectangular, flexible blade having two cutting edges and four corners. The blade is sufficiently flexible that it may be compressed endwise between the thumb and forefinger.

The holder-portion is shown comprising a plate having a flat seat for the blade. Four overhanging lugs, one for each corner of the blade, are shown carried by the plate-portion of the holder.

The holder has the usual guard.

…the blade to be compressed endwise between the thumb and forefinger to such an extent that the ends of  the blade will assume a position inwardly of’ the overhanging portions of the lugs at the respective ends and the blade-caused to buckle or hump up from it’s seat and its corners pass inwardly from under the overhanging portions of the lugs and thus be disengaged, from the same. Thus the flexibility of the blade constitutes the expedient by which the blade is inserted and removed…

As a means of starting the upward bending of the blade, the handle is provided internally with a plunger held normally down by a spring. The lower end of this plunger projects at the lower end of the handle. A slight upward pressure on the plunger is sufficient to start the blade and allow it to flex under the pressure of the thumb and forefinger.

Interestingly enough the patent text states that the blade should be double edged, even if it don’t touch upon why. While the ability to turn the blade around and thus have it last twice as long is an obvious reason, I suspect the real reason is that Mr Bunnell intended to use slightly modified Gillette DE blades; squared off instead of rounded edges is the only real change, and there is no reason why Mr Bunnell’s razor couldn’t be slightly changed to accept blades with rounded edges instead of flat. The presence of the two additional holes wouldn’t mean nothing to the operation of the razor. thus allowing this razor to piggyback the infrastructure Gillette already had in place to support their DE razor.

I see no reason why this razor couldn’t be manufactured today, for modern DE blades – in fact the indented corners of the modern blades could actually make it easier to secure the blade under the lugs. The real question becomes; would you want to shave with a razor with no top cap?