Thread: Super Sharp Ceramic Razors?

This has been brought up before. Its the delicate nature of the edge, imagine a ceramic edge so thin it wouldn't take much to chip it and then what do you do? You can't hone it you have to send it back. Also I think there was an issue with the comfort factor of a ceramic blade.

Well I'll try play the devil's advocate a bit

The issue of dropping the razor isn't really worse than for kitchen knives, and I believe they are quite popular, if a lot more expensive than regular kitchen knives. I'd certainly like a couple for the kitchen :-) (ok, so the dedrease in utility of a dropped razor is probably bigger than for a dropped kitchen knife). However, as far as I'm concerned it's already with steel razors potentially quite bad if you drop it, so depending on how bad one considers that it is perhaps not incrementally much worse to drop a ceramic razor.

As for the honing, it seems that many of us already use diamond based honing tools, so in principle that would enable honing of any material that isn't as hard as diamond ? I grant that the hardness of a ceramic material must require many strokes to remove the same volume of material off the edge than is the case for softer material such as carbon steel. However because of that same hardness the wear is likely to be correspondingly smaller. But for extremely brittle materials, chipping may be a problem, I couldn't say.

If indeed for whatever reason it would not be possible to hone the thing oneself, it would have to be extremely durable - the quality of the shave decreases fast with decreasing sharpness, much more so than does the utility of kitchen knives. In addition I think the one of the attractions of a straight razor is the element of preparing the shaving edge oneself, customizing it until it is just right.

Too easy to break. Too hard to sharpen. I'd pass until the ceramic technology gets a whole lot better.

Yeah, I have had all of these concerns in the back of my mind, trying to reserve judgment until a prototype is up and running.

it just seems to me that one may be able to play with the edge geometry a little to make up for the brittleness of the ceramic; for example, make the cutting edge angle a little more obtuse than a standard razor, just enough to decrease the chance of flagrant chipping.

The appeal to me (and possibly many others) is that there would be minimal upkeep needed, no stropping, no rusting, and much longer between honings... if it can be made to work.

And it would seem to me that no stropping and less cleaning means less handling in general which means a decreased chance of dropping it.

though I may be wrong, I could see only needing a good flat piece of hardwood with diamond honing compound to keep it in shape, barring any large chips that would require regrinding

But I can see how this might all be a load of crap, but you never know till you try, right?

Only one way to know for sure.....

Try it!

I say go for it...make one and let us know!

I'm interested


C utz

I saw it on TV (so it MUST be True).

The knives they are making are used mainly by sushi chefs. They showed the whole process, from extracting the mineral out of the ground, to making up the blanks and firing them, and then sending them out to have them sharpened.

I thought the sharpening would be some kind of CNC grinding machine.

No.

They send them to a little guy who hand sharpens them. A "master honer."
Well, I did see that he has some kind of electric grinder in his little 6 X 8 shop, and it looks like one smiling apprentice. Very primitive. All done right there in Japan. They probably have more than one master on the hook to do this.

No automatic machinery, just grinding equipment and hones.

Does this mean we could hone our own razors? I have no idea.

There are lots of ceramic knives on the market. Maybe someone here could snag one and see if he can get it to shave.

Here is one of my ceramic knives. Sharp as H*&^, but I would not shave with it. Tried it on the back of my hand and almost had to have stitches. It is amazing how quick they cut. I was being careful but the angle is different and it sliced right through the skin with no problem.





My other knife, a 5 inch pearing,got a small chip in the blade and I tried a diamond hone. It would of taken weeks to get it honed out. I took it to a friend that has a wet diamond lapping wheel. After setting it up in a jig to keep the angle right it took about a half hour of work to get it honed out. Just like new, cuts great.
I don't think that I would want to put that kind of time and effort into a razor.
Just my two cents worth.

Originally Posted by toolarts

I saw it on TV (so it MUST be True).

Haha, I saw a special on the history channel about sharpens and blades and they talked about ceramic blades. Ceramic blades supposedly can be sharpened much sharper then steel, and are used in industrial applications where sharpness is demanded and low risk of impact, eg slitting applications. And of course because it is ceramic the edge will hold longer because the material is harder.

I read somewhere that you can have an edge that is "too sharp" for a razor. Instead of cutting hairs and riding on the surface of the skin it will slice into the skin. I think that oldblades can testify to that