Thread: really an 11/16ths

I bought a number of razors over the last year, including razors listed as

1. 5/8 friodur
2. 6/8 Goldedge
3. 6/8 C-Mon HF
4. 5/8 Puma 81
5. 5/8 Wusthof Trident Standard

Anyway, I lately measured them, and they are all 11/16.

And then I checked my 6/8 LeGrelot and it's really 7/8. And I haven't even measured the rest of them yet. Very funny.

I couldn't figure out lately whether I liked 5/8s more or 6/8s and now I know why - they were all the same! Anyone else noticed that even official measurements aren't so accurate. I mean how hard is it to just plop he thing on a ruler?

Cat Man:

The "thing" is it depends on the manufactuer... I used to think the exact same thing and would argue the point till I was blue in the face....

Some manufactures measure size as overall size, top of the spine to the edge of the blade,, some measure from the edge of the spine...

To really confuse you, some are measured as say 6/8, but are actually a touch over that, when they are brand new and unhoned, so that after the first honing they are an actual 6/8....

Are you totally confused???

Like I have a tendency to always say about this hobby of ours, "Watch it when you make a definite statement as you might have to eat those words later"....

I think some people measure from the top of the spine and some may measure from the start of the grind. Either way, I tend to agree a real 5/8 is pretty small. I think many are really 11/16. At the end of the day, as long as they shave well!

Jordan

Funny. And I guess in the case of my new "6/8" Le Grelot, they measure from the shadow that the spine casts to the edge of the blade. Because I know my honing isn't adding metal. [or maybe it's that darn swarf magnetically attaching.]

in some cases [where the original box isn't available) there is yet another variable - whatever technique the ebay seller uses when they measure it (and whether they realize we care about the extra 1/16th.

Great post and replies!

I noticed this and just assumed the manufaturer was being conservative, i.e. ok if it is over, but it better not be under.

Those are metric 5/8ths, which are of course a bit larger than english 5/8ths...

I think what you need to remember, is that we have degrees of precision here. ("significant figures" was the term we used in all of my physics/chem classes back in college)

We tend to think of 5/8 and 10/16 and 1710/2736 as all being the same measurement, but they're not. Even if the fractions reduce the same, using a larger denominator establishes a greater degree of precision in the measurement.

If something is sold as 5/8, that means that it is 5/8 when measured to the nearest 1/8. 1/8 is all the more precise the measurements are to begin with. If they were measuring to the nearest 1/16, then they would have been labeled that way.

Of course, glen's explanation is also dead-on, so that complicates matters even more. If you stick to measuring to the nearest 1/8, and a razor is just the tiniest bit closer to 6/8 than 5/8, the first time you hone it, it will drop down to just the tiniest bit closer to 5/8, so you could turn a 6/8 razor into a 5/8 razor by taking off 1/64. (in theory)

Originally Posted by VeeDubb65

If they were measuring to the nearest 1/16, then they would have been labeled that way.

Just so there is no confusion on this, there are razors out there measured to the 1/16 most of these that I have seen are marked as 9/16, 11/16, and 13/16... These are actually marked on the boxes and the razors just depends.... The 11/16 size is the most common that I have seen, and everyone of those that I can think of were either Solingen or American....

This is just what I have seen so far, undoubtably other people will chime in with more sizes that were stamped or printed....