Tag Archives: Gear

New arrival – a khaki kit for the modern warfighter

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As some of you might recall, I own a vintage khaki kit from the Great War – specifically from 1918 if the serial number on the razor is an indication.
I not just own it, but it is in active use. It lives in my GoBag, so whenever I am on the Go i shave with it… a hundred years and more is no age for a razor, and the single button webbing kit have held up remarkable well too.
Some time ago I was contacted by Ironbeard on twitter (@ SaveYourShave), and told that he was sending me a modern reproduction of the khaki set – he had seen my Shaves Of The Day with it and got interested enough to not only get his own but to make reproductions in modern materials as well. And yesterday there was a padded envelope in my mailbox…
So here it is, both by itself and next to it’s older brother:

I had to try it both with the Gillette Old Type from my original khaki set, and a modern three piece razor from Yaqi (I don’t own many modern three piece razors… so I had to pick the one short handled one I own). The workmanship looks at least as sturdy as the original, the choice of elastic loops instead of fabric means handles and heads of varying sizes can be accommodated with easy.
As luck will have it I’ll be travelling a fair bit the next couple of weeks, so I’ll be able to give it a good test. Expect a review in the near future.

Self-sharpening safety razor

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One of the reasons why the classic safety razor have seen a resurgence the later years is that you can get great blades for a fraction of the cost of a cart… but that was not always the case. As I’ve shown in previous posts*, when adjusted for inflation the blades used to be as costly as cartridges are today. With that in mind, the popularity of razor blade sharpeners** made a lot more sense… but it still required you to take the blade out of the razor. Wouldn’t it be easier if the blade could stay in the razor?

While not a new idea^, William R Ewing and Benton M Ewing filed a couple of interesting patents in 1948 and 1950 for a self-sharpening razor and improvements for it.

The two Ewings certainly aimed high with their invention, wanting to

…eliminate the need for constant replacement of blades in a device of the safety razor type by providing means whereby opposite faces of the blade edge may be sharpened at will…

The patent drawings shows a permanently attached single edge blade, and a sharpening element in the form of a roller.

Two interesting things that stands out on the sharpening roller is that the actual grinder is a arranged in a spiral shape around most of the circumference, and that the roller is shaped to act as the safety bar when in the neutral position. A lot of effort went into making sure that the blade was pushed evenly against the grinder, as evidenced by the flat spring pressing on the swingable blade holder. And it seems like it was that spring that was the major improvement in their second patent.

The vaguely kidney shaped cavity in the roller allowed the blade to swing enough to allow the roller to sharpen the upper side of the blade as well as the underside… how this works is best seen with the small illustration in the bottom left corner of the last drawing in conjunction with the illustration in the same location on the first drawing.

So after loosing the roller the shaver would push it along a flat surface, first one way and then the other, until the blade was sharp. Simple, easy, and fast… in one handy, complicated package.

Overall, the two patents shows a lot of ingenuity and effort going into perfecting a solution to a problem the shaver today simply don’t have… blades are so cheap these days we can change them daily if we want to.

*) See, for example, this post
**) Some of which is discussed in this post
^) The Shake Sharp dates from ’43

Everything old is new again, again

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…and again, and again.

Heated razors is an age old quest. Gillette just dropped one, which seems to have impressed Mark over on the Sharpologist, and in their typical over the top marketing Gillette seems to be pushing this since the best shave ever… A hint for P&G: if you need to advertise the fact that your razor is waterproof, you’ve likely made an overly complicated razor.

Electrically heated razors isn’t a new idea by far, even if the latest itteration seems both more complicated* and far safer to use than some of the older ideas**.

While I can’t be completly sure, I’m reasonable satisfied that the current offering is based on a patent I found that was filed in in 2008 and assigned to the Gillette company – the patents describe a great many of the same features as the ads do.

…safety razor comprises a handle 14, a cartridge 15 with a safety device 18, a plate 24 and blades 30 between them. Inside the cartridge there is a heat-dispersive strip 40 and a heating element 45 with a resistive element 46 and an insulating element 50. The safety device comprises an electrical circuit providing power supply to the resistive element that provides heat to the heat-dispersive strip so that it imposes warmth to skin of the user during shaving.

The patent also lists twenty seven (27!) citations that predates it… and I found quite a few patents for heated razors that isn’t listed in the application.

Barra Charles  filed a version all the way back in 1923. If you think the plug looks kind of odd it’s because you’re meant to screw it into a light bulb socket… so no chance of grounding it.

…electrically heat safety razors in such a manner that they may be conveniently used while being heated and that the heat may be maintained during the shaving operation at any desired temperature, whereby I am enabled to obtain the advantageous results of smoothness and comfort during shaving and to avoid infections of the skin which frequently occur from the use of unsterilised razors.

Charles Barra also filed a heated straight razor in 1923, or rather an attachment that turned your straight into a heated razor:

A razor blade heated to such a temperature will make shaving of a persons face more comfortable and the resulting shave will be more satisfactory than where the face is shaved with a cold razor. 

…using an electric heater disposed at a suitable distance from the cutting edge of the blade, and in thermal relation thereto, which heater may be supplied with current from an ordinary electric service outlet, whereby the blade may be heated to and maintained at a sterilisation temperature both while not in use and while in the act of shaving.

(As a side note, sterilisation temperature is about 80°C (175°F) for almost all bacteria, yeast, and fungi… 80°C is enough to cause second and third degree burns in less than one second.)

In 1933 Pirwitz Emil filed for a safer variation, which required plugging and unplugging the razor:

…the invention employs a heating bolt disposed in the handle of the razor and made of material that is a good heat conductor, such as metal, the bolt iilling the entire handle from one end to the other and being adapted after one heating to keep the razor heated during an entire shaving operation without a new supply of heat.

…a bolt of this type permits the use of the razor without the dangers resulting from keeping the razor under current during the shaving operation. 

Mr Pirwitz also showed an interesting variation in the same patent:

 Look at figures 3 and 4; it’s a regular safety razor inserted into the heating device… which I presume you could either use while inserted in the bulky heater or take out and burn your fingers badly while shaving.

Thomas J Henderson and Leon Henderson aimed for cool hands in their 1935 patent:

The primary object of our invention is to provide in a safety razor a handle thereof which in use will apply heat only to the desired portion of the razor, that is, the head and blade, but will maintain a cool handle or grip.
A further object of our invention is to provide an electrically heated safety razor handle which is readily adapted for use on any suitable razor head.

Or how about this one from 1942, patented by Moses M Gravin?

…a safety razor with an electrically heated heating element therein which transmits an even heat to the razor blade and keeps it warm or hot during the shaving operation.
One of the objects of my invention is to heat the razor blade by conduction through a metallic element. I Another object of my invention is to provide ventilation between the heating element and the handle so that the handle will be cooled by the circulation of air.

In 1948 James Russel Hunt filed for a heated razor that allowed the shaver to adjust the current going into the razor by means of a rheostat:

..an electro-thermic shaver of the safety razor type which is adapted to directly heat the razor blade by heat conduction through a metallic element having a high coefficient of thermal conductivity such as copper.
…a heat control unit to permit the heat to be regulated by the user to produce various heat temperatures.

So as can be seen, the desire to make a heated razor is almost as old as Gillettes original safety razor… there is nothing new under the sun, nor in the shave den – except this time the offering isn’t that much bulkier than a regular razor, nor does it offer the exciting chance of electrocuting yourself while shaving.

*) It has overheat protection, two levels of heating, onboard battery with wireless charging, microcontroller, wobbly blades… I suspect the lats bit is unintentional
**) Hook your ungrounded razor up to the light fixture in your bathroom.. what can go wrong?

Gillette Adjustable resource site

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A number of my fellow wetshavers are extremely knowledgeable and enjoys sharing their labours of love. One of them is Glenn Conti, who knows more about Gillette adjustable razors than most shavers and collectors.

Glenn have put together a website detailing not only the details of how an adjustable razor work, not just pretty pictures of adjustable razors, not just how the Gillette adjustables evolved, but all that and much more. For example; I was clueless to the fact that including all variations there is about 150 distinct Gillette Adjustables out there, but Glenn have given more than enough detail to identify each one.

Glenn’s website is an invaluable resource for shavers and collectors alike, and I found it hard to close the window and go back to doing other things – the miscellaneous section in particular held my interest. The whole site is not only well written, but also well illustrated. A couple of examples:

Variations on parts used in the Fatboy razor. Some of the changes seems to have to do with function, some of them seems to be made for easier manufacture.

If you ever wondered how the gap changes on an adjustable, wonder no more. Glenn also details what the gap should be on each and every major variation of the Gillette Adjustables (apperantly my Slim is slightly milder than average).

So if you have a Gillette Adjustable, plan to get one, or just enjoys reading about razors in great detail, you owe yourself a visit to Glenns’s site.


Gillette Adjustable Razors

Pictures in this post is from Glenn Conti’s website, copyrighted by Glenn Conti, and are used with permission.

Brushless razor?

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Brushless creams saves time… or so I’m told. If you could do away with the whole ‘putting lather on before shaving’, it stands to reason that you should save even more time… or at least cut down on the clutter in the bathroom. So that might bave been on Kai Warming’s mind when he patented his “Shaving apparatus with supply of shaving liquid to the cutting edge” back in 1924.

Mr Warming – a Dane living in Copenhagen – stated in his patent that:

It is well known that shaving is rendered difficult if the lather or the shaving-liquid used is dried up or quite absorbed by the skin or the hair of the beard.

Hmm. Get a better shaving soap, or design an overly complex razor to supply  the skin with a small quantity of suds or water? I think Kai had a little too much spare time…

So what he designed was a fairly normal DE, but with a hollow handle and small channels running from the hollow handle and into the base plate. As an added complexity – and possible to avoid spraying the bathroom with suds and water – he included a small rotating disk (S) in the channels, that let the shaver select which half of the razor water was spraying from as well as turning the spray on and off…  at least until corrosion made the disk stick.

Just how the shaving liquid – be it “water, suds, glycerine, eau de cologne or olive oil” – was to be encouraged to move from the handle to the base plate is a little unclear to me; the patent mentions that the handle would be “displaceable as a unit by exertion of an axial pressure by hand, thereby supplying liquid from the said bore to the said cavity”… I can only read that as saying you would pump the handle to get liquid out.

The patent is long expired if a machinist out there feels adventurous… just don’t expect to sell much more than Kai did, even if you use olive oil as your shave liquid.

The Science Of Blade Sharpness

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There is an interesting article over on Sharpologist (adblocker recomended) on “The Science Of Blade Sharpness”; states and graphs and other interesting reading that I found well worth the time.

Or you could just try a lot of different blades until you find the best one for you – something you should probably do anyway, but reading this article can give you an idea of where to begin.

Stick to puck

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Not exactly breaking new ground here, but I’ve turned two shavesticks I’ve had “forever” into pucks of shaving soap… in part with a hope I’ll use them more often and use them up. I put both sticks in old deodorant tubes about six years ago after the wrapping paper disintegrated, but now they are just too hard to use comfortable as shaving sticks any longer. Luckily I had a couple of empty plastic tubs (they previously held BodyShop Peppermint Foot Cream; a product I can recommend by the way) that was just the right size for rehoming the shaving soaps.

Time taken all told; about five minutes including taking photos. New labels will be made once I got new tape for the label maker.

Types of safety razors; a pictorial guide

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Lets face it; safety razors can be confusing for those new to traditional shaving, and to old hands too. Some of us can instantly imagine what a three piece open comb double edge razor would look like, but others might feel a bit more lost in the jargon. So lets walk through part of my razor rotation and collection and highlight at least some of the common terms.

Safety bar, open comb, scallops and more
Gillette Slim w/ solid bars vs Gillette Old w/ open comb vs Asylum Shaveworks RX with scalloped bars
Phillips Philite razor with a scalloped plate vs Yaqi Mini with toothed base and top cap

While it’s tempting to claim you can either have a safety bar or an open comb (OC) – like the original Gillette Old Type – but in reality there are a number of razors straddling the line with scallops. My Phillips Philite is a good example of one that do just that, with it’s deep scallops that let lather run through the head of the razor. Some OC razors continue the comb on the top cap, but to my mind this has more to do with aesthetics and not with function.

One, two and three piece razors
Merkur 985CL three piece vs Gillette Old Type two piece vs Gillette TV Special Superspeed one piece
Basically this describe how many pieces the razors breaks down into when you open it it. Once piece razors are also commonly refered to as Twist To Open (or TTO for short) or butterfly razors, but at least one one piece razor – the Segal – had a different solution and required special blades that are no longer easily available. So called injectors is another case of one piece razors requiring a special blade, but luckily injector blades are easy to find.

Slants
Merkur 39C slant and the Merkur (most likely) Bakelite slant
Some razors are simply twisted… and are commonly referred to as slants and are considered aggressive razors overall. There are benefits to a slant; for starters they cuts the stubble easier due to hitting it at an oblique angle. Another benefit is that a twisted blade will be slightly stiffer than the same blade in a normal safety razor. Slants can also be fun, especially if you got a weekends worth of stubble to mow down. The twist can be slight or greater, as can be seen comparing my Merkur 39C and my old Bakelite slant that I bought as new old stock (NOS).

Adjustable and non-adjustable
Gillette Slim adjustable vs Gillette TV Special Superspeed non-adjustable

Some razors lets the shaver adjust the aggressiveness on the fly, while others have a fixed blade gap and angle set once and for all. While the added utility can be nice to have, it do make the razor mechanically more complex and drives the cost up in addition to making the head thicker to contain the mechanism. A few modern three piece razors offers several base plates so the shaver can adjust the shave without the added complexity, but those cannot be adjusted on the fly like a traditional adjustable can.

Single vs double edge
GEM Micromatic Clug Pruf single edge vs Mergress Adjustable double edge
If you say “safety razor” to most people, they will instantly think of a double edged – or DE for short – razor. But single edged razors (SE) is a thing too, and they come in all the different variations listed above as well. One thing to keep in mind is that while there is – at least these days – only one standard for double edged razor blades, there is several different and non-compatible blades for SE razors. In my rotation I have a few SEs; three that uses GEM blades and one injector razor.

Steel, brass, zamak, potmetal, bakelite, plastic…
Asylum Shaveworks RX in stainless steel vs GEM 1912 in brass vs Parker 22R partly in zamak vs YUMA in potmetal vs Philips Philite in a bakelite analog vs an unnamed medical razor in plastic

Safety razor can be made from almost any material, from titanium down to wood… and to some extent the choice of material affects the feel of the shave and the hole left in your wallet after buying one. High end razors these days are often made from hard, durable materials such as stainless steel and titanium, while zamak has gotten an undeserved bad reputation in my opinion. And while I  do try to limit my consumption of plastic thee days, there is nothing inherently wrong with plastic as a material for an inexpensive safety razor; it does what it needs to do and is affordable,
The wood razor I referred to? That was the Welch’s Saratoga, also known as the E-KON-I-ME and was a pre-plastic disposable.

Hopefully that was informative and helps clear things up for those who were unsure of the terminology.. if I missed out on something, please let me know.