Thread: HELP! Should my razor be rusting this fast?

Originally Posted by Utopian

I do something unusual and dip my blades in isopropyl alcohol containing 0.5% mineral oil. The alcohol dries the blade completely as it evaporates and the oil residue protects the blade.

Some exchange w/ Utopian, to clarify some of the process for making the mineral oil/alch solution. 'Not knowing any better, took home a bottle of plain isopropyl from the supermarket, added plain mineral oil from the health/beauty products section of the same store (labeled as lubricant/laxitive ?) .005 x 32 oz of alch = .16 oz mineral oil to add. Since the thread spoke of anything less than 91% alch/oil should work, I added 1 tablespoon (which is about 1/2oz). 4 days of shaking the jar, I still had the salad dressing look, with oil globules floating. Some was no doubt in solution, but not all. The lovely bride uses denatured alcohol for an alcohol lamp because Isopropyl is usually only 70% alch. The rest is water. Denatured is mostly alch w/ some poisons added to keep folks from trying to drink it or convert to booze. They don't list the percentages, but it's supposedly a much higher concentration of alcohol.

'Took some home tonight from the home improvement section - about $12-13/gal, and a tablespoon with some agitation left zero globules. 'Not being one that knows when to quit, I added a 2nd tablespoon of oil and agitated. Still no globules. That would be 3 & 1/8% oil. I'll quit here.

One big benefit to Utopians method is that he doesn't have to wipe oil from the blade before stropping or use. That's a time saver. I hope the extra tablespoon of oil doesn't change that, or I'll remix with a single tablespoon & call it good.

UPdate:
Now this gets good. I was seeing no globules with the denatured. That's 'cause they were on the bottom, unlike the isopropyl - which were on the top. 'Nice physics experiment. oil floats on water, but alcohol, clearly floats on oil. At least any overage of oil will not get in the way, and as Utopian said - worth case - shake like vinegar and oil salad dressing. This will be interesting to see how this differs in coating the blade from the Isopropyl. Either way, I'd rather not use a solution that's 30% water.