Thread: An end and an answer to the Wonderedge debate

Originally Posted by Seraphim

It is illegal to sell cheap crap as premium, but not illegal to sell premium stuff as the cheap stuff. To save money by not having to have three seperate production lines, they just churned out the premium tape, and packaged it as three seperate price points--it was all the same stuff!

That's fantastic, I'm going to remember that story.

Bausch & Lomb got busted for the same thing. Their daily, monthly, and annually replaced contacts were identical.

Regarding the cryo treatment, I have cryo tempered DE blades, thanks to my ready access to LiN in my lab. I gave 5 cryo and 5 regular blades to my wife, she numbered them and gave them back to me, and I was able to identify the cryo'd blades due to their lasting twice as long. I asked Mike Blue, at the MN get together, about cryo tempering. He did not think it would be of significant value for straight razors. There was an earlier discussion of cryo treatment here. The thread also has links within it to other cryo threads.

It is tempting to cryo a few Wapis and Double Arrows and then compare them to regular ones.

Did a search about the subject over at the sword place. The smiths are in agreement, cryo treatment does have advantages, but its almost worthless for carbon steel. The steels that will receive the most benefit are really complex steels. They gave the example of the 10xx line of steel not needing cryo at all.

Made sense to me. And they concur with Mike in his threads here.

Originally Posted by Utopian

Bausch & Lomb got busted for the same thing. Their daily, monthly, and annually replaced contacts were identical.

Regarding the cryo treatment, I have cryo tempered DE blades, thanks to my ready access to LiN in my lab. I gave 5 cryo and 5 regular blades to my wife, she numbered them and gave them back to me, and I was able to identify the cryo'd blades due to their lasting twice as long. I asked Mike Blue, at the MN get together, about cryo tempering. He did not think it would be of significant value for straight razors. There was an earlier discussion of cryo treatment here. The thread also has links within it to other cryo threads.

It is tempting to cryo a few Wapis and Double Arrows and then compare them to regular ones.

Cryo a Double Arrow!? Who would dare to mess around with one of those vaunted beauties?


There is a cryo treatment place here in Mass that does it for $100 a batch. Myabe worthwhile if I were doing a batch of 10 razors...Double tempered Double Arrows

Are DAs ans Wapis made from stainless? I think most smiths agree that the greater the complexity of the steel, the greater the benefits. Therefore, SS would benefit from cryo treatment.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Cryo a Double Arrow!? Who would dare to mess around with one of those vaunted beauties?


There is a cryo treatment place here in Mass that does it for $100 a batch. Myabe worthwhile if I were doing a batch of 10 razors...Double tempered Double Arrows

I have one razor I would like to add to your batch if possible.

Originally Posted by Leighton

Are DAs ans Wapis made from stainless? I think most smiths agree that the greater the complexity of the steel, the greater the benefits. Therefore, SS would benefit from cryo treatment.

Aha!

Indeed...... Wapis and DAs are carbon steel, but then again, so is the Wonderedge, isn't it?

Originally Posted by sparq

I have one razor I would like to add to your batch if possible.

Sure....



but it will cost you $100......

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Aha!

Indeed...... Wapis and DAs are carbon steel, but then again, so is the Wonderedge, isn't it?

Theres different alloys of carbon steel. I doubt its made from 10XX. The smiths agreed that they would never bother with cryo treating 10xx.

It could also be a martensitic SS, I believe they have less "corrosion resistant" elements, making them more like carbon steel.

Either case, I'm pretty sure its a marketing gimmick and DD did it because it was new technology at the time and no one understood the benefits completely. Thats my conclusion and I'm sticking to it.

As for the edge retention characteristics, its probably just made better with much better QC and a much better heat treatment. Therefore, cryo is just a sales gimmick.

Thats my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Originally Posted by Leighton

cryo treatment does have advantages, but its almost worthless for carbon steel. The steels that will receive the most benefit are really complex steels. They gave the example of the 10xx line of steel not needing cryo at all.

Yup. Took the words out of my mouth. Basically just SS technically benefits from cryo.

Originally Posted by Leighton

Either case, I'm pretty sure its a marketing gimmick and DD did it because it was new technology at the time and no one understood the benefits completely. Thats my conclusion and I'm sticking to it.

As for the edge retention characteristics, its probably just made better with much better QC and a much better heat treatment. Therefore, cryo is just a sales gimmick.

I couldn't agree more. Even though we don't know for sure right now, I doubt the Wonderedge is a SS or else they would label it as one. DD also made a stainless razor and marked it as such if I recall correctly.

Then again, there are knifemakers who think they get better results by just putting their blades in the freezer overnight after heat treat, so who knows.