Possible to resharpen a DE blade?

smokemeakipper · Post by **smokemeakipper** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:12 am

Has anyone tried sharpening a double edge safety blade? I've seen some gadgets, although collector's items, that carried this out.
Also, would it be possible to sharpen the modern blades made with exotic materials?

Thanks in advance.

BeatlesFan · Post by **BeatlesFan** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:23 am

While it is theoretically possible, I'd say forget it about it. For two reasons:

1) Those old-fashioned blade re-sharpeners were designed to be used on thicker, carbon steel blades of yester-year, not thinner, more modern stainless steel blades. I doubt the result on a modern blade would be at all satisfactory.

2) Modern blade technology is very sophisticated, and it involves a the application of a final layer of hard metal on the blade, as well as anti-friction coatings of one sort or another (teflon, ceramic, etc.). (For reference about blade mfg technology, here is a very good summary from Schick's web page: http://www.shaving.com/history/blade.asp). If you re-grind the razor blade, you're certainly going to strip all those good metal, ceramic, teflon, etc. coatings away, and the blade will not perform up to its original spec.

Finally, as a practical matter, we're talking about 15 to 20 cents a blade here, which will provide you something like 3 to 7 shaves. At that price, even my frugal nature says, "don't bother" !

Pauldog · Post by **Pauldog** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:14 pm

Two tricks can extend your blade life. One is to clean the edges very gently with alcohol. This can remove mineral deposits that dull the edge. The other trick is to hand strop the blade a few strokes.

If you use anything harder than a hand or soft leather, you'll probably hurt the coatings on the edge and make the blade worse.

rahul325 · Post by **rahul325** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:58 pm

saw this on the howard clark show on cnn

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal ... index.html

so can u really extend the life of ur blade by just air drying them??

i used a new blade yday and before hanging it to dry(i used to normally leave it in the razor after rinsing and shaking off excess water) i blew air over the blade to get rid of the water. lets see if this theory works.

Squire · Post by **Squire** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:58 pm

Hey Smoke, welcome aboard. It can be done but other than intellectual curiosity being satisfied wasn't worth my time.

Pauldog · Post by **Pauldog** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:14 pm

rahul325 wrote:so can u really extend the life of ur blade by just air drying them??

I think if you have hard water, it's less likely to make a difference.

KAV · Post by **KAV** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:04 pm

My daily pocket knife is a alox swiss military with a can and bottle opener.
I went to open a can of Campbells soup with it and it's now a pulltab. My favourite german beer still needs the bottlecap. I'm actually using the spearpoint blade to open most of the insanely packaged products I encounter these days.
My point? Gillette decided to sell more by making disposables. DE was, and is a economical method and market or consumption could not be increased like the famous enlarging of the toothpaste hole.
WS is increasing in popularity, but we could still lose many products to bean counters in this tough world economy.
Be happy with the 5 shave mean average, and buy more! Find economy in simply avoiding some of the 'stuff' we seem to be wading knee high in.

diggity · Post by **diggity** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:26 pm

I would much rather toss the blade and replace it with another .25 blade. Doesn't seem worth it to me.

CMur12 · Post by **CMur12** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 12:26 am

I don't generally like the idea of disposable products, even double-edge razor blades. They do represent less waste than cartridge blades and whole disposable razors (at least in plastic), but I still have a hard time throwing out a blade before its time. I air-dry and hand-strop my blades, for whatever that is worth.

The issue for me isn't the cost per blade. The issue is that a perfectly good piece of fine steel has seen very little use before being relegated to the garbage.

- Murray

smokemeakipper · Post by **smokemeakipper** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:04 am

Yes, I heard about the air drying which is interesting, but whether this can be done with hard/soft water is another thing.

Many thanks.

JarmoP · Post by **JarmoP** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:04 am

Murray, i see your point. I myself dispose my blade after the 4th shave as a routine. Shaking the razor works for me as I think the water drops will evaporate quite fast what is left. Derby blades unfortunately have the 5 blade plastic packafe instead 10.

I have sold my car and depend on public transportation since I am able to depend on them. That i feel is a more environmental thing to do than worry about DE blades and their manufacturing and packaging cost. Consider if you have a blade bank with like a 100 DE blades and how little they weigh.

Aztecface · Post by **Aztecface** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:07 am

Considering the cheap prices for new DE blades these days, why would you want to?

Aside from afficionados of 'being as cheap as possible', not many do it.

EverSharp · Post by **EverSharp** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 8:55 am

As has been said due to manufacturing techniques, sharpening efforts will be sub-optimal. The best solution is get a straight razor( two would be optimal for blade rest) which you can use for the rest of your life.

alcx77 · Post by **alcx77** » Fri Jan 01, 2010 10:56 am

I tend to enjoy experimenting with blade longevity and have found that by
applying the known techniques of hand stropping, storing dry, shaving in a steam environment and maintaining correct angle with minimum of blade edge exposure ie the Futur on a 1 setting I have racked up some remarkable numbers ie Merker 22 and Derby 29 shaves for instance.
Alan
[Currently]
Futur
Personna ASR blade
Boar bush
VDH & Trumpers Sandlewood soaps

Pauldog · Post by **Pauldog** » Fri Jan 01, 2010 12:50 pm

The big energy savings in shaving will come if Gillette uses LED's in their new lighted razors.

Ecosse · Post by **Ecosse** » Fri Jan 01, 2010 4:19 pm

Wasn't there a poster on here that had a vid on youtube that showed how to strop DE blades?

swarden43 · Post by **swarden43** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 8:20 am

Ecosse wrote:Wasn't there a poster on here that had a vid on youtube that showed how to strop DE blades?

Ask and ye shall receive!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogq4wfpT7hc

Squire · Post by **Squire** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 9:42 am

To be truly minimalistic one open razor, one hone and one strop is all you will ever need.