Thread: mint and functionality...

Originally Posted by adjustme69

I find that Mint razors are easier for new people to hone than some of the older razors with use or significant prior use. A mint razor usually only takes minimal honing to make it shave ready and so long as you are buying a German, French, US or Maestro made razor, you should be ready to shave in short order.

Lynn

Lynn,

I think this goes more to the heart of what Cyrano138 is asking than a lot of the other information offered here.

Cyrano, the real trick with a mint razor (provided it's a well made, quality razor) is that the spine/edge angular relationship is exactly (or at least as close as possible) as the blade was designed to be. No one has mis-honed, or in any other way, altered the critical angles that make the blade perform as it's designed. Even a professionally honed razor won't radically alter that relationship for many years of normal use.

When you have a blade that is visibly altered from the original shape, the angular relationship has been seriously altered, and isn't constant across the entire edge, as most razors should be.

Very early blade designs were wedge shaped (straight sided, or no concave grind), but they were wider at the toe of the blade than at the heel. In other words, you had convergent top and bottom lines, instead of the top and bottom lines being essentially parallel. Even the heavy wedge blades made in the 19th century in Sheffield, with their pronounced "smile" profile, had the spine and edge in pretty close alignment, although on an arc.

Virtually none of the blades that I've seen sold as "minty", unless New Old Stock (NOS) blades, have the really correct relationship of a truly MINT blade. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but I've seen too many blades with a straight spine and either a smiling or frowning profile advertised as "minty".

Long story made short, unless you have a really refined honing technique, any blade that isn't close to MINT will be much more difficult to achieve a good shaving edge with, primarily due to the varying angular relationship. As one develops more skill in honing, the more difficult edges become easier to deal with, bjut they defineitely aren't for most beginners.

In the arena of functionality, you can see that blades that aren't MINT, or close to it, can be significantly less functional for a new shaver, or anyone who isn't skilled at honing.

I think that if we were all concerned about razors being mint we would all just buy new razors and not mess with the Eboy stuff.

To me if your talking mint vs nonmint its mainly appearances. The mint razor looks prettier and will require less work to bring it back to its original appearance.

If you want to talk about functionality then its not a matter of mint vs nonmint its the degree of wear the razor has. A razor can be far from mint yet still be highly functional. I've seen razors that looked mint yet had maybe one defect like a huge chip in it and I've seen ancient razors that required a little TLQ and they were basically new again. The classic case to me was the guy who bought a very expensive razor that came still sealed in the original box, never used or even touched by human hands and while fondling his new razor dropped it on a concrete floor and lost about a 2 inch piece of the edge. So, would that still be a mint razor? And no it wasn't me!

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

The classic case to me was the guy who bought a very expensive razor that came still sealed in the original box, never used or even touched by human hands and while fondling his new razor dropped it on a concrete floor and lost about a 2 inch piece of the edge. So, would that still be a mint razor? And no it wasn't me!

Did you cry along side with him?

i would say, for the sake of defining it to discuss, that as mint-ness increases, the closeness of the razor to its original factory condition increases, with a completely mint razor being exactly as it was when it left the maker's hands. so, no, the guy who dropped his razor no longer owns a mint razor. he owns an unused razor, but use is not the only way to diminish mint-ness. anyway, my original question refers to mint as i've defined it here, if that helps. in reference to what the big spendur said, i would think everyone here would agree that use, no matter how professional or careful the honing and shaving, diminishes mint-ness simply because any kind of use removes metal from the razor, diminishing the number of times it may be used again.

thanks for all the info and good discussion, everyone.