Gillette Blade Gaps

 

For today's wet-shaving enthusiasts, measuring the "aggressiveness" of various safety razors sometimes is the only way to quantify what kind of shave a given safety razor handle will provide. Usually measured in 100's of an inch, this key measurement is taken using a feeler gauge - placing the metal "blade" of between the safety bar and the bottom of the DE blade.

In this fashion, an accurate measurement can be taken of the blade gap that a safety razor has. The more / higher the gap, the more aggressive the razor will shave because there is more blade being exposed to your whiskers.  Gillette and other razor companies were well aware of this - in fact, they were even quantifying it on their various models just as we do today. Here is an image from a 1954 Gillette engineering report documenting what their standard 3 piece style razors were measured at.

Keep in mind that if you measure the blade gap along different parts of the guard, you will get different measurements. The doors / cap will squeeze the blade tighter towards the ends of the guard compared to the middle / near a guard lather slot. We have found it a good practice to take a measurement between each guard slot for this exact reason.

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The following measurements were taken from New Old Stock or Non-Circulated razors from the Razor Emporium collection. What that means is that these razors came directly from Gillette, Gillette employees or otherwise were never sold, opened, used or circulated. Taking measurements from razors "found" at a thrift store or from eBay is hardly accurate as there are years of drops that could have affected the safety razor components that are made of (relatively) soft brass. 

For Adjustable razors, all measurements are taken at setting number 1. Because of the design of the slotted adjustment dial, once the setting is made at 1, all other settings move up automatically / incrementally from there. 

 

RAZOR MODEL	GAP (IN)	(MM)	WEIGHT  (OZ)
Black Bottom Dial	0.010	0.254
$1.95 "Fatboy" Adjustable	0.015	0.381
Executive Adjustable	0.015	0.381
Nickel 1-9 Toggle Adjustable	0.015	0.381
Slim Adjustable	0.015	0.381
Gold 1-9 Toggle Adjustable	0.020	0.508
$2.49 "Red Dot" Fatboy Adjustable	0.020	0.508
Light "Blue Tip" Super Speed	0.020	0.508
Regular "Flare Tip" Super Speed	0.025	0.635
Heavy "Red Tip" Super Speed	0.030	0.762
1-9 Bottom Dial	.038	0.965