Thread: Origin of the curved razor toe?

Hey guys, check out this patent........RAZOR - Google Patents

Very interesting stuff.
I am looking forward to what the history buffs have to add about this.
:

Nice piece of history
Great find mate
Just think, 10 years for a patent to be granted
A real exercise in patience
Sounds a lot like shaving with a cut throat razor

Thanks for sharing
Rick

Pretty cool indeed. I also like to see peoples handwriting and script from back long ago. It's very different from ours.

Originally Posted by Maxi

Pretty cool indeed. I also like to see peoples handwriting and script from back long ago. It's very different from ours.

Very true.People used to take pride in things,even things as small as hand writing.

Very cool but there were curved razors before this date. I too would like to hear from the guru's. I still wonder how you guys find these papers and info.

Thanks for the read, Randy. Very interesting.

Originally Posted by nicknbleeding

Very cool but there were curved razors before this date.

True, but it would be interesting to know how many of those curved blades were made that way intentionally and how many are curved due to honing....

The patent is not about the curve of the edge/spine but rather the shaping of the end/toe due to the removal of decarburized steel at the end of the blade. What he is trying to patent is the process of adding additional steel to the blade stock length in order to end up with the desired blade length after the decarb steel is ground off. What I was wondering is this how the various shapes of the end of the blade started?
They knew they had to remove the decarb steel so maybe they decided on a specific design? ala the Barbers notch or French point or Spanish point etc ???????

The patent office is full of inventions that went nowhere. The fact is, have you ever seen a razor made this way? I haven't. I suspect maybe in the 1880s this was an issue but a few years down the road improvements in metal fabrication would make this invention unnecessary.

Like Randy says, it is patently (ha ha - obvious pun intended) obvious that the patent is for removing the uneven temper at the end of the blade by making it longer than normal, rather than having anything to do with the curve.
However, the various tip shapes were already in evidence before this, so all the cut-away details show is that you could make a set of dies to stamp the break-off point as you wished. As far as the patent is concerned, a straight break would be as good as any other.

What the patent does not address is any stress induced in the remaining blade by snapping off the end. The idea is still in use today - for instance steel ties to hold concrete moulding panels together while the concrete is poured have these break-off lines stamped into them - once the concrete has set and the plywood or whatever retainers are removed, the steel holding bars are simply struck off as close to the poured concrete as possible. In this case it doesnt matter about stresses - the steel is mild - but in an already tempered piece I can see that snapping the end of could be problematical.

It is also wasteful of steel, and does not lend itself to the stamping of steel into pre-formed dies.

I tend to agree with the bigspendur - the patent office is full of such designs. Just because they are there doesn't prove anything except that one person thought the idea good enough to patent. I have seen an awful lot of razors from the date of this patent and before it, and I can honestly say that that the largest percentage of blades fit the scales - if barbers en-masse had been given to grinding off the tips of razors, then surely that would be manifestly evident in a great big gap between razor tip and wedge - that is not my experience.

As for the various shapes of tip - if you show a person one thing he will put his own swing on it sooner or later - it is only human nature. The shapes that appeal to the most people are the ones that catch on, the others fade away. If that wasn't so there would only be one type of anything - one knife shape, one fork shape, one spoon shape, one sword shape, etc. If razors began life by being simply hammered, then a curved blade with a hollow tip to some degree would be the result - try hammering a strip of soft metal like lead into a razor shape with a thick side and a thin side, then you will see the curve form before your very eyes. Sooner or later someone would want to make a straighter blade with a round tip - why be the same as everyone else?

Like Labi Siffre once sung: there are more questions than answers.

Regards,
Neil