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How a razor blade can be damaged as it cuts human hair (2020)
- themodelplumber 4y ago> An in-situ hair cutting experiment in a scanning electron microscope, showing the chipping process. Image: Gianluca Roscioli That video was oddly pleasant to watch. I admit I was expecting to see the blade become miraculously f'd up in the process, due to the rest of the article, but hair is indeed very soft and the look of that angular cut at such a scale is kind of amazing to think about. (Perhaps when such microscopes hit Aliexpress we'll see this genre enter the extremely-satisfying-videos arena)
- techdragon 4y agoIt took a moment to realise it but given the scanning nature of the microscope this was actually done like a stop motion animation… That or scanning electron microscopes have gotten a way faster “shutter speed” since I last looked at them.
- metal_am 4y agoLooks like we're seeing basically a recording of what you'd see at the microscope, just not in real time. The video is way sped up.
- wrp 4y agoThis study should be considered along with that from metallurgist John Verhoeven, who thought the main cause of chipping is corrosion. (https://knifesteelnerds.com/2021/01/11/what-causes-razor-blades-to-dull/ https://knifesteelnerds.com/2021/01/11/what-causes-razor-bla...) What both these studies reveal is an absence of bending of the sharp edge, indicating that the tradition of razor stropping has no real effect.
- danielheath 4y ago> indicating that the tradition of razor stropping has no real effect Indicating that if stropping does help, it's not by the obvious/expected mechanism of bending the sharp edge back.
- trabant00 4y agoI think stropping is still required after sharpening. But during shaving it might not do anything as indicated by the findings.
- wrp 4y agoWhat we need is before and after microscopy to see just what effect stropping has. It seems like an obvious idea to me, but I haven't found any.
- Zak 4y agoThere are a large number of electron microscope images here showing the results of various sharpening tools including strops with and without added abrasives. https://scienceofsharp.com/home/ https://scienceofsharp.com/home/
- wrp 4y agoThanks. Those studies are interesting, although after reading What Does Stropping Do? I feel like I still don't have a clear answer on whether it does any good to strop before shaving. The photo evidence seems really ambiguous.
- Zak 4y agoIt straightens and sharpens the edge, which is likely to improve the shaving experience. It's unconventional, but I use an abrasive when stropping my straight razor (quarter micron diamond paste), which greatly increases the sharpening effect and reduces the need for other sharpening (traditionally, honing on stones).
- denton-scratch 4y agoStropping definitely is required after sharpening. Without stropping, you get a pretty harsh shave.
- mauvehaus 4y agoI don't shave with a straight razor, but I do sharpen carving tools for woodworking. I strop with a fine honing compound on the strop, and the purpose of that for my application is to get a more highly polished edge than I get off of stones. The[0] explanation among woodworkers being that a more polished edge has fewer micro serrations along the edge that create weak points on the edge for dulling to start. If the edge has fine points from coarser (relatively) stones, they can break off, leaving a definitely non-sharp region behind. Or something like that. Other tools that are frequently stropped include drawknives. Chisels and plane irons are less commonly stropped because the softer strop inevitably reduces the flatness of the blade at the cutting edge[1]. [0] Ok, one explanation. Some woodworkers will argue bitterly about anything related to sharpening. [1] The importance of which is another topic that woodworkers will argue endlessly.
- userbinator 4y agoThe researchers have filed a provisional patent on a process to manipulate steel into a more homogenous form, in order to make longer-lasting, more chip-resistant blades. Considering what started the whole idea of the consumables industry, a patent on making razor blades longer-lasting seems incredibly ironic.
- kijin 4y agoJust charge more for the longer-lasting blades. Don't forget to make them incompatible with every other product on the market except your own proprietary, overpriced handle.
- ehnto 4y agoI imagine there's already a steel capable of this task as well. Razor makers would choose their steel based on cost/performance tradeoffs not because they're already at the bleeding-edge of steelmaking technology.
- noasaservice 4y agoThe patent would keep other companies FROM making longer-lasting razors. That's the real dark side of patent law - its used by the entrenched businesses FROM competitors entering the market with better technology for up to 17y. That's exactly how we got Reprap so late - Stratasys patented the whole lot of 3d printing tech, and the patent didnt expire until 2011.
- Nomentatus 4y agoWith kitchen knives, acid in fruits, esp, is the main reason they grow dull. Rinse 'em immediately after, without fail. Skin oils might be a bit of harm, too.
- stinos 4y agoSource? And is this effect more serious than hitting the hardwood underneath the fruit? And the chipping explained in this article?
- silisili 4y agoI've read a ton about razors in the past decade or so, and wish more of what has been reported was covered here. This just reports that hairs microchip blades. To what extent does it matter, for example? Firstly, I'd read that DE blades actually get sharper after the first shave, due to coating wearing off, then quickly dull after the third or fourth shave. Personally, I'm unsure of this finding, as I always find new blades the best cutting and in fact change my blade every other shave. Secondly, it's commonplace to the point of common knowledge or folk lore that it is rusting that ruins blades, hence you should soak them in alcohol, or dry them vigorously after each shave. Is this even true?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- CannisterFlux 4y agoNah, there's no need to alcohol/dry DE blades. They're all made of stainless steel nowadays and don't rust. That advice was maybe from 100 years ago when they were made of carbon steel. You're more likely to dull the blade by accidentally hitting something with its edge (hopefully not your finger) if you take it out of the razor. As for changing every other shave, I guess it depends on beard and razor. I have a Merkur 34C that tugs like mad whatever blade I use, new, old, in-between, they're all as bad. And an Ikon slant thing that feels like you could use a piece of paper in it and it'd work wonderfully. I go about 60-70 shaves before I can tell the razor might be getting a bit dull in that one.
- silisili 4y agoFeather ASD2. I have extremely thick face hairs, like little wires. Which I find odd, because my head hair and arm hair and such are very fair, thin, soft. It's also a different color...blond vs some copper color(now half gray). With a new blade, it feels like rubbing a wand on my face. By the 4th shave, it feels like a tiny metal man is plucking each hair from my face. Especially painful in the mustache area.
- XorNot 4y ago
- shric 4y agoI always assumed razor blades were designed to last as short as possible a time that people would tolerate so as to maximize recurring revenue.
- andreareina 4y agoFor this purpose it's difficult to make blades that are both sharp, and dull quickly.
- silisili 4y agoAll cutting edges have in common that the sharper you make them, the more quickly they'll dull. It's why kitchen knives get sharpened at a shallower angle than hunting knives, and those shallower than hatchets and such. Razors have a much, much tinier edge than even the sharpest filet knife. So basically every cut deforms the edge in someway. They could potentially make thicker blades, but most people aren't going to ever bother resharpening them, nor would they be able to get the edge correct. And if they make the edge itself thicker... it's going to feel like shaving with an axe.
- Zak 4y agoMore acute angles resist abrasive wear better because more material must be removed before the edge radius is too large to cut effectively. More obtuse angles resist deformation and chipping better, but cannot slice through material as effectively. https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/06/18/maximizing-edge-retention/ https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/06/18/maximizing-edge-reten...
- eru 4y agoRazor blades are a standardised commodity. And it's easy to switch suppliers.
- slt2021 4y agoThis explains why my shaving blade last for me very long time - I always shave in the opposite direction of hair growth, not along, so that blade always approaches hair at nearly 90 degrees. if you shave along the direction of hair growth, the blade will approach hair at 15-30 degrees which causes excess wear & tear on a shaving blade.
- slillibri 4y agoOne warning though, shaving against the grain can increase razor burn and ingrown hairs.
- dahdum 4y agoAnother tip that has worked for me is stropping the blade by running it backwards on the skin of my arm. It’s anecdote but it certainly seems to give me several more shaves out of the blade. I generally start when I would otherwise throw the blade out.
- pastrami_panda 4y agoI do this against a towel after each shave, I saw a video some 10-15 years ago of a guy doing it against jeans. I believe he also verified with a microscope it indeed made the blade sharper.
- BuzzVII 4y agoI saw something similar. I thought it was Hank Green in a vlogbrothers video. My Google-fu isn't good enough to find it again.
- djmips 4y agoI thought everyone did that?
- irrational 4y agoI always go with the grain for the first pass and against the grain for the second.
- wirthjason 4y agoInteresting article! However I hoped to get some recommendations, or at least “it doesn’t matter what you buy”, and maybe some comments on the performance of multi-blade razors. Given that the angle of cut matters is it better to shave certain parts of the face with the grain or against?
- slt2021 4y agoalways against, so that blade approaches hair as close to 90 degrees as possible, cuts quickly and is done. what really kills the blade and creates cracks is when you cut hair at 15-20 degrees and blade cuts hair and then starts dragging it along your face while cutting and this is how microcracks form and grow in size. you can create your own experiment with knife and some veggie like green onion. try to cut it at steep angle and drag it along the cutting board - and you will see that it produces much more stress on cutting surface
- nehal3m 4y agoI prefer to use double edge safety razors and shaving with the grain. It prevents ingrown hairs, but the result is slightly less smooth. It's enough for daily use and very comfortable while shaving. Replacing blades is super cheap so it's always sharp.
- asah 4y agoI've been using a RazorPit sharpener for years - the thing really works!! And I consume a couple of blades a year, if that.
- briandon 4y agoNeither of the two videos embedded in the linked press release shows any damage to the blade of the razor. They each cut out at the point that the blade has just finished slicing through a hair, while the hair is still in contact with the blade edge and obscuring our view of any hypothetical chips or defects caused by the cutting process. Bizarre.
- gorgoiler 4y agoThe first SEM video shows a small-omega shaped scallop in the blade after it cut the hair. It is indeed a shame this is only visible in the final handful of frames before the video loops. For me though it didn’t detract too much from the awe. What an incredible result.
- briandon 4y agoWhat I see there is the cut edge of the hair overlapping the blade rather than any change in the blade itself. The videos are very cool and I appreciate cool videos, but I don't see any evidence in them for the claim of capturing damage to the blades. It's possible that the press release omits clearer videos that unequivocally show damage to the blades during cutting.
- manholio 4y agoOr it's also possible some grad students with a null hypothesis result are hyping their own startup idea - they have a patent on making better steel for such high toughness applications. Surely that's a technology that would have wide impact on a large number of industries, they probably chose razors as a low mass, high value MVP and hope to scale up.
- IgorPartola 4y ago> The researchers have filed a provisional patent on a process to manipulate steel into a more homogenous form, in order to make longer-lasting, more chip-resistant blades.
- helsinkiandrew 4y agoThat headline suggests a sharper razor should dull less. But surely the sharper a blade is (the thinner the edge) the faster it will dull.
- AnonC 4y ago> When he analyzed the SEM images and movies taken during the cutting experiments, he found that chips did not occur when the hair was cut perpendicular to the blade. When the hair was free to bend, however, chips were more likely to occur. These chips most commonly formed in places where the blade edge met the sides of the hair strands. Extending the life of a razor blade sounds nice, but cutting hair perpendicular to the blade means shaving against the grain, does it not? I don’t want to handle the pain of doing that on the first or second pass while the hair is still long enough (like a couple of millimeters or longer, which cannot be trimmed using a trimmer and needs a blade). But shaving against the grain gives the smoothest skin texture (at the risk of causing ingrown hair, which for me is quite rare). What I’m saying is that I’d rather the blades dull and need replacement sooner than put up with the burn and pain caused by shaving against the grain from the get go. A few passes with the grain and perpendicular to the grain (sideways) helps the “against the grain pass” be less painful and provide a smoother result. I’d still love a blade that lasts longer though.
- eru 4y agoYou could use two different blades for the different tasks?
- rowanG077 4y agoInteresting shaving doesn't feel painful at all to me. No matter which way I do it. Well unless I cut myself.
- XorNot 4y agoMy problem is I have sensitive skin, and don't feel the cuts at all - which happen much more easily when the blade is slightly dull. Shaving against the grain is a sure fire way to have folliculitis for the next couple of days - as it is I really can't clean shave every day if I want to actually look presentable.
- cevn 4y agoDouble Edge shaving solved a similar problem for me. I used to get irritation every time I shaved ATG but that was because I was hitting the wrong side of my face with 5 blades.. Now I can shave easily ATG just by using light pressure and doing WTG first.
- Hnrobert42 4y agoI don’t have anything useful to say other than damn I love SEM movies! I bought a Celestron USB microscope. It was fascinating to look at my skin, nails, desk surface, carpet, anything. Well, at least for the 15 minutes before the device failed. I returned it and never bought a replacement. :-( Has anyone had luck with a toy-ish microscope in the $200 range?
- kardos 4y agoI picked up a Carson MicroBrite Plus for the same purpose -- looking at clothes/newsprint/etc and it works pretty well. It claims to do 60-120x magnification. No easy way to capture the images but it makes for a good toy. Would be interested in a recommendation for something with higher magnification
- Eisenstein 4y agoYou can take a webcam (as long as it doesn't do auto-gain control or auto-focus) and stick it on the eyepiece to capture video/stills.
- Synaesthesia 4y agoOr your phone works too
- lightedman 4y agoI have a Celestron scope. It has worked fine for all of the years I've had it, though it doesn't give live video out to the PC itself, just to its own internal monitor.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nehal3m 4y agoIt is not in manufacturers' interest to apply this information toward a longer lasting blade. Replacing them is the business model.
- beebmam 4y agoIt's quite simple to sharpen your own razors or shaving blades, I've been doing it for years.
- vinni2 4y agohow?
- smegsicle 4y agonice leather strop?
- trabant00 4y agoStropping is not sharpening. Stropping is just bending the edge back into shape when it rolls onto itself. Sharpening involves removing material which is necessary when you have chipping like mentioned in the article.
- Zak 4y agoStropping is sharpening. A clean strop (without added abrasive) not only straightens the edge, but also burnishes it and removes material by abrasion. Here are some electron microscope images showing the effects. https://scienceofsharp.com/2014/08/13/what-does-stropping-do/ https://scienceofsharp.com/2014/08/13/what-does-stropping-do...
- tiku 4y agoEven rubbing against a pair of jeans will sharpen them again. https://imustacheyoutoshave.com/sharpening-a-razor-with-your-jeans/ https://imustacheyoutoshave.com/sharpening-a-razor-with-your...
- dang 4y agoDiscussed at the time: Why shaving dulls even the sharpest of razors - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24075855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24075855 - Aug 2020 (123 comments)
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y agoI use Feather blades from Japan. I can get up to six shaves from a single two-sided blade.
- Bayart 4y agoI've used Kai blades and they're far too sharp. Nowadays I much prefer Voskhod blades, they're much better fitted to my hair and skin.
- Freak_NL 4y agoI've found Astra blades to be good enough for me; quite a step up from the lowest tier (e.g., Bic), but not as fancy as those Japanese blades. Inflation certainly seems like a good motivator for more people to switch to safety blades — wet shaving should be cheap, and it is if one stops buying the stuff marketed the hardest.
- Bayart 4y agoI initially switched years ago because it made more financial sense, but nowadays I just enjoy safety blades more. I don't spend much on blades (10€ for a hundred Voskhod blades lasts me ages), but I do spend a bit on the shaving cream (nothing beats L'Occitane's shaving cream, and it's a local company).
- francesco 4y agoThe sharpest blade is not necessarily the best. The "perfect" blade, should such a thing exist, depends on your razor, beard and technique. Shameless plug: should you start the search for the perfect blade, at https://www.razorbladesclub.com/ https://www.razorbladesclub.com/ you'll find the widest selection of double edge razor blades worldwide.
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- currenciessfe 4y agoCeramic knifes are much better at cutting soft stuff than metal knifes. So why are there no ceramic blade razors?
- Freak_NL 4y agoI guess it's mostly just not economical to produce such a thing. As other commenters noted, with good quality disposable safety blades you get between 3 and 10 shaves depending on your hair and preference. When you buy those in a typical bulk package containing 20 cartons of 5 blades each, your yearly expense in terms of blades sits around the €5 point. Perhaps Gillette could put out one of their fancy twenty-odd blade monstrosities with an extra ceramic blade in front though. I'm sure that's marketable to people who haven't figured out they're spending way too much money on something that costs a fraction if you look beyond the products pharmacies push in your face.
- Zak 4y agoCeramic knives are so prone to chipping that they effectively have micro-serrated edges even when freshly sharpened. A micro-serrated edge on a razor pulls hairs and cuts skin. I don't doubt that in your experience ceramic knives cut food better than metal ones, but I suspect you have not used a well-sharpened knife. Mass-produced knives are typically sharpened using belt grinders and do not cut as effectively as knives hand-sharpened by someone skilled at it. https://scienceofsharp.com/2018/02/24/ceramic-blades/ https://scienceofsharp.com/2018/02/24/ceramic-blades/
- hoseja 4y agoTurns out everything is just fuzzy magnets sticking together softly.
- Razengan 4y agoWith all of human tech and science, why do we not have better hair management by now? Growth, removal, color… You’d think the richest people would want to invest in that research as they grow older.
- mejutoco 4y agoI believe, even with all the impressive advances, we do not know as much as we would like to think.
- dennis_jeeves1 4y agoTrue, most of the supposed impressive advances touted by the media, including that of medicine amount to almost nothing on close examination.
- tiborsaas 4y agoWe do have IPL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intense_pulsed_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intense_pulsed_light) to stop growing hair where it's problematic. We have hair transplants, not really a new thig. For some woman washing hair is a hours long procedure applying various chemicals :) Coloring is also "solved" a long time ago. What do you miss?
- thesaint 4y ago
- xchip 4y agoTL;DR: "They found that the simulations predicted failure under three conditions: when the blade approached the hair at an angle, when the blade’s steel was heterogenous in composition, and when the edge of a hair strand met the blade at a weak point in its heterogenous structure." "Tasan says these conditions illustrate a mechanism known as stress intensification, in which the effect of a stress applied to a material is intensified if the material’s structure has microcracks. Once an initial microcrack forms, the material’s heterogeneous structure enabled these cracks to easily grow to chips."
- denton-scratch 4y agoI read a lengthy article on how the edge of a straight razor reacts to being used. It seems that microscopically, the honed edge of the blade looks like a comb of teeth. When you shave, these teeth fold over. Stropping apparently straightens out the folded edge. Eventually these teeth break off, and the edge has to be remade. That can be done with a few strokes on a coticule, every 6 months or so. The authors apparently experimented on stainless steel blades; stright razors are made from carbon steel, which doubtless has a different microcrystalline structure. [I know, the article's about disposable razors]
- hilbert42 4y agoItem 1. I hate sharpening knives and tools, so I wish someone would do a similar study for wood plane irons/blades (including their different steel types) versus various grinding techniques, grinding grit sizes etc.; and also explain why good old carbon steel often gives a smoother cut than do many of the harder specialized steels that have Rockwell figures which are well into the 60s—even though the fact that carbon steel dulls and blunts much more quickly than do those much harder steels? Item 2. In a somewhat oblique vein, during COVID I always wore N95/P2 masks in public and I always took extra heed to follow the instructions that came with them which read to the effect that 'this mask will be less effective on those with bearded faces'. Clearly that stands to reason so the question is by how much. I'm constantly bemused by the large percentage masks on bearded faces and whose wearers seem oblivious to the fact that their beards are likely rendering their masks ineffective. Especially so when I see doctors on TV who've beards and who are there specifically to proselytize the virtues of wearing masks. With their beards popping out from behind their ill-fitting masks, it seems strange to me that these highly trained medicos seem oblivious to the obvious fact that their beards are putting them at risk—not to mention that they are setting a bad example. Now the issue is this: given that a clean-shaven, stubble-free face provides a better mask-to-skin seal than one with stubble, the questions are: Does anyone know of whether tests have been done on N95-type masks to test the effectiveness of their mask-to-skin seals? If so, whether any significant leakage was detected at the seal and whether stubble growth throughout the day worsened said leakage (the implication being that by the afternoon/evening masks would be less effective though increasing seal leakage)? The corollary of the question would be to ask if a beard stubble impedes the effectiveness of the mask-to-skin seal then at what point in the growth of a newly-forming beard (at what stubble length, etc.) does the stubble render the mask ineffective (dangerous to wear)?
- j-bos 4y agoNot sure where you can do it outside the industry, but mask fit tests are required in many (all?) US petrochemical facilities. The test involves an accurate measurement of gases passing through to the mask wearer. Edit: seems you can just buy a kit https://pksafety.com/3m-ft-20-training-and-fit-testing-kit-in-carrying-case?msclkid=cab35e8c5f5d169e47393db69ec42287&utm https://pksafety.com/3m-ft-20-training-and-fit-testing-kit-i...
- OGWhales 4y agoFor those interested in the SEM images and looking for more, check out this site: https://scienceofsharp.com/home/ https://scienceofsharp.com/home/ The site focuses mainly on sharpening razor blades and is full of SEM images of blades in various conditions. Very cool to see. This page about burrs has some particularly cool images: https://scienceofsharp.com/2015/01/13/what-is-a-burr-part-2/ https://scienceofsharp.com/2015/01/13/what-is-a-burr-part-2/
- c7b 4y agoMildly OT, but the hair cutting gifs are surprisingly satisfying to watch :)
- agentultra 4y agoNow does stropping straighten or correct the imperfections caused as we believe or is it a useless practice? We’ve been doing it for hundreds of years with this mental model that these experiments confirm and that stropping doesn’t sharpen but merely straightens the edge. Yet one must still sharpen the edge eventually.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoThe purpose of stropping is to break off the weak edge formed after sharpening so the smoothed edge is less prone to chipping.
- ripe 4y agoA little off-topic, but: Am I the only one who finds the repeated incorrect spelling of "heterogeneous" annoying? The worst part is, the way they spell it, "heterogenous", actually means something else. Just not what they think it means...
- causi 4y ago"Heterogeneous" is just so horrifically awkward-sounding. It's as if it's a word purpose-built for making the speaker sound like they're pronouncing a word they don't know how to pronounce.
- dragontamer 4y ago> The team’s findings may also offer clues on how to preserve a blade’s sharpness. For instance, in slicing vegetables, a chef might consider cutting straight down, rather than at an angle. And in designing longer-lasting, more chip-resistant blades, manufacturers might consider making knives from more homogenous materials. I'm no knife expert, but my understanding is that today's best knives use VG-10 steel, which is designed to "chip itself to make itself sharper". So its hard, flexible, slightly more brittle than you'd expect. But these micro-chips end up sharpening the blade more often than not. There's more than one way to design a blade's metallurgy. For shaving steel, it needs to be as cheap and flexible as possible, so that machines can mass produce them. High end knife-blanks cannot be punched if the steel is too hard or strong (leading to a "price cliff", where the best steels are an order of magnitude more expensive than the punchable lower-cost steels). -------- So yes, very interesting experiment. But also consider the overall picture: chip-resistance isn't everything.
- Joker_vD 4y agoWait a second, those micro-chips end in the cut food pieces, right? How "micro" are those and how much of those are made on average in a cutting session? I am pretty sure that steel dust, starting from some size of specks and general amount of it, is not very healthy for internal consumption so I'd like to learn more.
- delecti 4y agoOn the contrary, dietary iron, the kind you need, is just iron. There's a fairly common science demonstration where you blend up fortified breakfast cereal (I saw it done with corn flakes) and pass a magnet over it. The magnet will pick up a bit of iron dust. The amount of steel flaking off a knife into any given meal is likely much smaller than how much iron is in the food on its own merits.
- shagie 4y agoThere's also using cast iron to introduce iron into the diet. Food prepared in iron cooking pots as an intervention for reducing iron deficiency anaemia in developing countries: a systematic review - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12859709/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12859709/ It's also something that many vegans have looked into https://plantprosperous.com/cast-iron-cooking-for-vegans/ https://plantprosperous.com/cast-iron-cooking-for-vegans/ (which links to the above article too - though I found the nih one first) My search-fu is failing me at the moment, but that was also believed that this was an important part of the pioneers heading west in the early parts of United States history.
- yuan43 4y agoHow did this article get the first word "How" through the HN filter? Why does this filter exist?
- nkurz 4y ago1) The filter only exists for the initial submission. You can manually edit the leading word back in after that if you want. 2) I'm not certain, but I presume the idea is that many clickbait article titles are improved by removing the "how".
- SubiculumCode 4y agoThey make ceramic knives. Why not ceramic razors?
- aidenn0 4y agoI've noticed that a lot of the alloys for knife blades that have good edge retention are from PM (often, but not exclusively, sintered). I always assumed it was because of the types of alloys they could make, but this article suggests that the uniformity attainable through PM might be a bigger effect.
- bob_loblaw 4y agoYeah, I was wondering about the particle metallurgy process (or the equivalent from other foundries). I know that AEB-L and similar Sandvik steels are ingot steels. Would the added cost be worth it? What about something LC200N (Cronidur 30)? Great corrosion resistance and toughness. Comments here talk about corrosion leading to micro fractures. Not sure if traditional toughness in terms of cutlery applies here.
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- ChrisArchitect 4y agoSome discussion from when this was news 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24075855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24075855
- bentobean 4y ago> “The team’s findings may also offer clues on how to preserve a blade’s sharpness.” This team is playing with fire and should tread carefully. If they should happen to stumble across the secret to a “perma-sharp” razor blade that never needs replacing, I have no doubt that “big razor” will dispatch them with a vengeance. The team lead will be strolling through the park on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when a stunningly beautiful female jogger “accidentally” steps on his foot. He’ll think nothing of it, but what he won’t realize is that he was just on the receiving end of a Polonium 238 injection delivered at the order of the Gillette family.
- namlem 4y agoSo what if you made a razor blade of something like the monocrystaline nickel alloy used to make jet turbine blades? Would they never dull from cutting soft material such as hair?