Who sells gillette replacement end caps? I did a search but all the really seems to come up is razor emporiums service of 25 bucks per side. I have a few razors that need the repair and 25 bucks per side will never fit into my budget, I have a soldiering iron and a small torch and would be interested in attempting the fix myself. Thanks Steve Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
I have found that really roached out razors on the Bay are a good source of caps. Sometime you can pick up a super speed for a couple of bucks and it works out well for you.
Gotta agree with @Misphit, probably the cheapest way to go. You can find beat up Super Speeds all day long on Ebay.
Sounds like a "Go for it!" project. Take photos and document your work. You might become the guy others send their razors for repairs.
I make high powered flashlights as a hobby wouldnt think this would be too hard provided I can find the caps. Ive seen alternate ideas that just said clean up the solder and polish it. Would work on if its not nickle on brass or gold on some silver base. BTW why is it my nickel razors are brass and I get sent an Aristocrat thats wearing through its gold plate and it looks like bright nickel under it? Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
Someone with more knowledge and/or experience will speak soon. I believe the brass razor is plated in nickle first to provide a better surface for the gold plating to adhere.
The Short answer. Because Brass contains Zinc. You need a layer of nickel between the brass and the gold so the zinc does not discolor the gold. Another metal that was commonly used as an separation layer was silver, but that is more expensive.
Thinking more about it, depending on the age and place of manufacture, it may actually be silver under the gold. Many of the early Gillettes were silver plated so it may have been more affordable to use silver because the line was already setup that way. Please take your Aristocrat to a chemist and give us a detailed analysis of what he finds. Also, Aristocrats were the high end razors and more expensive. This may not have been the case with other razor styles. I might be wrong, but I believe that several replating companies will also use a nickel barrier under Rhodium for the same reason. Or not, see below. EDIT: From the Razor Emporium replate process for gold and rhodium. "To achieve this finish, we first strike bright copper plating directly onto the raw brass parts to establish good chemical adhesion of the subsequent layers. Next a nickel plate is applied - creating a hard and durable surface that will help make the final finish shine. Finally, a heavy deposit of 24K Gold plating is applied which will have a bright and shiny luster that should last for years to come. " & "To achieve this finish, we first strike bright copper plating directly onto the raw brass parts to establish good chemical adhesion of the subsequent layers. Next a nickel plate is applied - creating a hard and durable surface that will help make the final finish shine. Finally, a deposit of Rhodium plating is applied which will have a bright and shiny luster that should last for years to come."
Ahh, I was close. Brass razor is plated with copper for adhesion. That would also place a barrier between the zinc component (zinc + copper = brass alloy) and the gold.
However, not all razors were nickel or copper plated before gold plating. The NEW come to mind. They were gold washed, then HEAVILY lacquered. Zinc isn't really an issue to the gold plating, at least, not in a brass alloy. I think the main problem is that Zinc is next to impossible to make SMOOTH. A good nickel plating smooths out the surface, leaving something that gold will stick to without leaving ripple effects. Sometimes, when you nickel plate brass, it's then _chromed_ on top of the nickel. So you have brass, nickel on top, then chrome, and _then_ gold. *boggle* (I read a bunch of plating forums. The musical instrument folks are REALLY into that.) If you have zinc, you copper plate the zinc, then nickel or chrome plate the copper, then gold. Remember, Gillette mostly didn't gold plate. They used a gold WASH, so the underlying surface needed to be bright and shiny. The modern platers use an actual gold plating, which holds up better without the lacquer.
