How does hair make a razor dull?

[Tyson A Wright]

This is an interesting article on some research by metallurgists trying to determine how a hard thing (razor blade) gets dulled by cutting a soft thing (hair). Might be of interest to some of us here (plus some interesting closeups of the dulling process in action).

Hope this is useful.

-Tyson

 

[Larrin]

Pretty interesting paper. Covers similar damage mechanisms to my book about carbides leading to cracking. It’s surprising it happens to razors with hair though.

 

[A.McPherson]

Interesting article! Thanks for posting!

 

[Josh Rider]

Side note, I challenged myself to try to use my razor for a year by honing it on my skin before shaving just to see if I could do it.
It worked.

 

[marchone]

Thanks for posting. The findings are consistent with micro photos I’ve seen of surgical knife edges compared with edged obsidian tools. Now I have to wonder if the edges compared been used or were new.

 

[Storm W]

Its amazing that that article is all over the news. Interesting though.