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Advocating safety in razor handles

Posted: Thu May 04, 2017 2:27 pm
by brothers
I have this one razor that came with a plain handle. Plain in all respects, smooth, no knurling, nothing. Just a round rod with a rounded end. During the normal shave today, as I rinsed off the head by holding the razor under the running tap, my fingers got wet and the next thing I knew, in less than a microsecond, the razor had shot out of my grip and my other hand had instinctively grabbed for it, unsuccessfully, and the razor landed on the countertop. It didn't hit the floor, and still within that microsecond, I was pleased that the razor looked undamaged. Then I looked at my left index finger --- no pain, but a nice slice on the tip. Quickly applied a bandaid and cleaned up the blood. It all happened so fast I had no time to remind myself that grabbing for a dropped razor is not recommended. Two days ago I had made a mental note to find a knurled handle for the razor, I used a different one yesterday but for today I opted to use the original. I won't make this mistake a second time. Great razor, bad idea to sell it with a smooth round handle. Two predictions: first, other guys will also be dropping their razors; second, I won't use that handle again for any razor.

Re: Advocating safety in razor handles

Posted: Thu May 04, 2017 3:04 pm
by Gene
Gary - I am sure most of us have a story or two involving blood and ill-advised razor fun.

I know I do!

Glad your wasn't any worse that what you described.

Re: Advocating safety in razor handles

Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 4:04 am
by fallingwickets
there are so many razors that have caught my eye over the years, but most come with smooth handles and so that was the end of that. Ive never understood how guys manage to use those without suffering some sort of mishap. Years ago i bought an ikon oss(?) and have never looked back. I think its the perfect handle: well knurled and decently hefty in hand

Re: Advocating safety in razor handles

Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 4:25 pm
by CMur12
My solution has been to keep my fingers and the razor handle dry. When needed, I dry my fingers and the razor handle between passes.

I tend to do this anyway, regardless of the handle, so a smooth handle hasn't been an problem for me.

(I'm also just a little bit compulsive.)

- Murray

Re: Advocating safety in razor handles

Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 8:13 pm
by brothers
Murray, all of this was in my book of rules, but at that instant all bets were off. It was totally unscripted and unavoidable. The only element that was open for variation was the absence or presence of knurling. Maybe it would have happened even with knurling on the handle. This fact makes life itself an unpredictable adventure.

Re: Advocating safety in razor handles

Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 8:39 pm
by CMur12
Gary, perhaps I should say that it hasn't happened to me, so far.

I have had a couple of comparable mishaps with kitchen knives. As I get older, I occasionally fumble where I wouldn't have before.

We all do our best, and we reduce risk where we find the need (as you are doing here).

Still, we can't reduce risk to nothing.

- Murray

Re: Advocating safety in razor handles

Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 9:21 pm
by brothers
CMur12 wrote:Gary, perhaps I should say that it hasn't happened to me, so far.

I have had a couple of comparable mishaps with kitchen knives. As I get older, I occasionally fumble where I wouldn't have before.

We all do our best, and we reduce risk where we find the need (as you are doing here).

Still, we can't reduce risk to nothing.

- Murray
Agreed. That foolish concept does exist in the imagination of some elected officials. :D "Let's make a law!"

Re: Advocating safety in razor handles

Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 7:54 pm
by brothers
If you recall, 5 days ago I decided to locate a knurled brass handle for the brass General. I did search, but wasn't satisfied with what I was finding. I stumbled upon a thread in one of our sister forums that blew my mind. Following the example, I made two knurled brass razor handles of my own. Total cost: $8 plus tax. Actual time spent on the conversion: 20 minutes. Here's the location of the information: https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/th ... le.387198/.

(EDIT: Here's what I did, in a nutshell: I went to Harbor Freight . . . and bought two of these tools off the shelf for $3.99 each. Took them home, unwrapped them, removed the internal parts, and I already have the proper metric 5 x .8 tap from updating the threads on a couple of my older handles over the last few years. Didn't even need to do any drilling.)

I just wrapped the upper section with several layers of tape to protect it and clamped it gently but firmly in the bench vice, put a drop or two of oil on the tap, and slowly but surely tapped out the hole. I smoothed out the top ridge with a diamond plate I use for straight razors, and was delighted to see that with little or no real effort or expense, I now have two beautiful and quite functional polished brass knurled handles for my handsome General bronze razor head.

The finish on the head is a perfect match for the finish on these new handles.
Brass General Harbor Freight Center Punch brass handles.jpg
Brass General Harbor Freight Center Punch brass handles.jpg (40.48 KiB) Viewed 1181 times

Re: Advocating safety in razor handles

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 9:36 pm
by brothers
This evening I decided to add some weight to the long knurled brass center punch that I converted to a handle for the brass General. I removed the internal nonfunctioning springs and stuff that were associated with the center punch function. Then I filled the hollow interior of the handle with BBs. I figured out a way to fill in the internal voids between the BBs and the handle with super glue (CA), and I also superglued the upper and lower screw threaded top and bottom caps onto the center piece of the handle. The final product weighs 71.5 g, 20 grams heavier than the hollow handle. The brass head is pretty heavy, and with the heavier handle, it is a substantial and beautiful match.