W. Greaves Acier Fondu

**karlej** · 11-28-2017, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by MrHouston

With a wedge of lead, could the three holes in the wedge be simply for weight reduction?

I doubt they are there to reduce weight and removing such little weight does not effect balance. The wedge is thin. .025 tapering up to .075 and .530 in length. Maybe they thought they were saving material or the holes could have been incidental because of the design of the die used in making the wedge. The pins I also think were there to keep the wedge from rotating and at some point it was realized they were unnecessary and they were leaned out of the process. I have seen a single pin hidden under the collars that does penetrate the wedge but on later razors.
I have never found anything on how the wedges were actually made. I suppose casting in some type of gang mold could have been used but that would require removal of the sprue or multiple sprues meaning more work. A die and stamping makes more sense to me.

**ScienceGuy** · 11-28-2017, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by MrHouston

With a wedge of lead, could the three holes in the wedge be simply for weight reduction?

It's such a minute difference that I can't see weight saving as something to worry about. It could be to save material, but the materials for wedge making were base metals and I think were readily available.