What were new types plated with?

Discussion in 'Safety Razors' started by Puma, Jun 15, 2017.

  1. Puma

    Puma Well-Known Member

    I am new (unintended pun) to the vintage razor game and I have a question. What were the old and new types plated with? One of my news is gold with the cap worn down to brass that looks like copper. The other is silver, but it is still shiny, leading me to believe that it is not silver, but maybe nickel. Since I have an old and a goodwill on the way educate me on those, too.
     
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  2. jar

    jar Well-Known Member

    Silver, nickle and gold IIRC.
     
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  3. jimjo1031

    jimjo1031 never bloomed myself

    Reason why your one razor cap looks copper is because it is brass, but with a higher content of copper added. When polished up, it does make a good contrast.
     
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  4. Puma

    Puma Well-Known Member

    That is actually the one thing I knew; that the brass contained a lot of copper. I agree that it looks kind of cool. When I bought it I thought I might get it plated, but once I cleaned it up I liked the look because the rest of the razor still had most of the gold plating intact. I also decided after using another razor, the nickel plated one, that I would probably not be using them much and as display pieces I preferred to show the original finish, the history, and how they had held up.
     
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  5. Jayaruh

    Jayaruh The Cackalacky House Pet

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  6. RetLEO-07

    RetLEO-07 likes his penguin deep fried, with pink sparkles

    IMG_0097.JPG
    NEW SC ca. 1932-1940
     
  7. Bookworm

    Bookworm Well-Known Member

    I'm not an expert, but I've found different ones plated differently. Lord only knows why. I've seen brass that's nickel plated, then the nickel is gold plated. I've also seen it just gold plated straight on the brass. (This is on razors). I've heard of nickel plating that's then chrome plated to reduce oxidation of the nickel. I have yet to see a silver plated NEW, but I've seen a lot of silver plated other razors. They were plated right onto the brass. I've seen a nickel plated NEW, but it looked more like a recent replate. There's also the black handled NEW, with whatever they used for the handle.
     
  8. brit

    brit in a box

    both of my new sc razors look like polished brass.
     
  9. Puma

    Puma Well-Known Member

    Last edited: Jun 16, 2017
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  10. Puma

    Puma Well-Known Member

    ...and the gold.
    DSCN0988.JPG
     
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  11. RetLEO-07

    RetLEO-07 likes his penguin deep fried, with pink sparkles

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  12. John Ruschmeyer

    John Ruschmeyer Well-Known Member

    There's probably a good technical reason, but it seems like Gillette favored making the caps out of brass with a high copper content and making the baseplates out of yellow brass (lower-copper content). This seems to be true into the 50's, anyway.
     
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  13. John Ruschmeyer

    John Ruschmeyer Well-Known Member

    I wish I understood the gold plating, too. For instance, I've got an NDC Milord which is gold plated (washed?) onto nickel-plated brass. I also, however, have a Tech from the same era which is just gold wash straight on the brass (much of which has since come off).
     
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  14. Puma

    Puma Well-Known Member

    :thanks:
     
  15. Bookworm

    Bookworm Well-Known Member

    I think the TTO's were _all_ nickel plated, and then they selected certain ones to be gold washed. So, if they produced 100 Ranger Techs, they pulled out 10 of them to wash. Simply an economy measure.
     
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