Disposable Razor Maintenence

[Sam Sloane]

I got out my new 60x kingmas viewer and looked at my Excel razor...both a used one and a new one......I wish i could post images for you all to see!

This lead me to a 30 min journey on the internet to find that people actually STROP their used blades......someone built a handsome denim box.....someone uses green compound on a peice of plastic.....and a company in the UK makes a silicone pad and some magic sauce to sell as a Razor strop to save you hundreds of dollars per year!

Here is the link:

https://www.razorpit.com/


Has anyone on here that lives for a sharp blade done an investigation?

Can you really do much more than clean out the crud?

Have you done it yourself??......What really works well?

I go thru alot of blades, so this sort of thing appeals to me.

I would also like to dissect a blade, and test it but doubt I could pull it off as those little blades are so delicate.

Sam

[grepper]

I'm guessing those edges roll just like any other edges.  If the roll direction is away from the razor (which would make sense) then "steeling" them by dragging across some surface might work and maybe you could get a few more shaves out of one.  

I suspect just doing a good cleaning would help too.

I disassembled one once.  Those little blade strips are very thin and flimsy.  Not much steel there at all to work with.  Actually I'm surprised they work as well as they do.

I know EOU pulled one apart and tested it for sharpness.  It was as sharp as a DE razor. 

I just buy the cheapest double edge ones I can find and then pitch them when they get dull.  I wouldn't want to be accused of not contributing my part in adding to the billions of little bits of plastic in our landfills. Onion other hand, I do resharpen utility knife blades.

[Mark Reich]

Get a straight!!

Just kidding. Toy razors work for lots of guys. And girls.









I haven't seen razor edges roll from use, even though one of my straights failed on media. A rolled edge would not work at all in my estimation.

[grepper]

Mr. Mark, are you actually saying you get your legs silky smooth with a straight?  No worries about unattractive nicks on your shins?   I just hate it when that happens!

I have a toy razor that is getting on the dull side.  I'll throw it under the scope and try to see why it's dull.  I find it hard to believe that just shaving could actually wear the edge down. Maybe corrosion?  Unless the blade is cutting sandpaper or some other abrasive, isn't dulling pretty much synonymous with rolling?  I guess an edge could be mashed straight down, but from my limited experience there is more proclivity to roll than to mash.

[EOU]

We hate nicks on our legs. Makes it difficult to pull our hose on.

[TerryMulhern]

Has anyone tried Razorpit? Here's some info I found on razor edge geometry introduction - http://www.coticule.be/the-cafeteria/topic/856.html. I thought the satisfactory sharpness is quite a relative thing.

[EOU]

Just to expand on Grepper's reference to us first - we found the edges in disposables to be on par with inexpensive DE blades - about 50.

Then moving on. There was a guy here in Phoenix who was selling a product that supposedly extended the life of disposables to weeks rather than days. Saw it on the local news a year ago. It was just a plastic cup, 1/3 full of green liquid, and you simply dumped the razor in the liquid and left it there until the next shave. The reporter on the story said that it worked for him. There's only three possibilities here to our way of thinking; (1) The liquid keeps the edge from oxidizing (2) The liquid cleans the crud off the edge (3) All the above.

[SHARPCO]

A similar effect can be obtained with the thumb. Below is a video I made.

https://youtu.be/bB0wSlMYgck

[Mark Reich]

Right on, Mr Sharpco! I thoroughly agree that stropping on your thumb leather will work as well as anything.

If you do it after shaving, it should keep the blades clean. If done prior to shaving, should remove surface oxidation just like stropping a straight razor before use.

[SHARPCO]

Right on, Mr Sharpco! I thoroughly agree that stropping on your thumb leather will work as well as anything.

If you do it after shaving, it should keep the blades clean. If done prior to shaving, should remove surface oxidation just like stropping a straight razor before use.

Exactly