Why did this thought pop into my mind . . . 3D printing!!!
Seriously though. The technology is there. I remember when Rado watches came onto the scene. Tungsten carbide and sapphire crystals. Virtually scratch-proof! And that is the case. Wear them every day and they look almost new after 10 years, even if they have gone out of style.
Now sapphire is almost standard for the crystals in decent watches.
$100,000? Give me a break. Gillette will market one for $300.00. Schick will then put one out at $200. Bic will follow at $100 and then the store brands will drop the price to $75 for the same thing.
Being an early adapter can be fun. It can also be stupid, financially speaking. Yes, I did pay $900 for an early DVD player.
Going back to the mid-80’s, my wife and I paid $500 for a VCR. Had to wait over an hour at the store to be approved for credit for a monthly payment plan( a year, I think it was).
It’s the Iridium handle that makes it so expensive.
It’s $770 per troy ounce (today), and it’s 10% denser than gold, so an ounce is only about 73% of a cubic centimeter. That handle must be 10+ cubic centimeters, so that’s around $10,000 of Iridium right there.
Point well taken. However, it is the blade that does the shaving, not the handle. That’s why many people are perfectly comfortable with disposable razors.
If you need the iridium handle it shouldn’t go for more than $30,000 with your math. I like the idea of the sapphire blades. I probably would try them out.
When was the last time anyone had a razor handle fail on them that wasn’t made of plastic? Come to think of it, I’ve got this garbage can full of stainless steel razor handles that just keep snapping on me. They are settled next to the $30,000 HDMI cables that just don’t transmit digital information with enough clarity.
Based on the blades being 80 atoms thick the manufacturing process can’t be cheap for those either and I’d wager they are just a touch higher quality than those in disposable razors.
But it’s a luxury item - of course it is overpriced. To someone with the money I’d say it’s better spent on this than, say treating the family to a round of $25,000 per serving hot chocolate.
Shhh! You’ll scare off the Mark!
You’re not wrong, but I could do it on a lathe. (That and I’d honestly rather a lathe in my basement. I just like them better.)
That used to be true, but just last year I’d heard that there were some newer bits sold that claimed to be able to cut them as well. I was told that they were more expensive than the diamond version, but the sales pitch was that they could do the job.
I’ve never worked with either directly though; I just studied this once in a course. Yeah, risking sapphire (which is brittle and subject to fracture) when milled with unproven tools is too rich a risk for my blood.
Also, if we were to get picky, this job these days would be left to a CNC (which does the work of both a Mill and a Lathe and is far more accurate).
Another valid point. Then another thought crossed my addled brain:
When I was in college I worked in a laboratory that had a microtome for slicing extremely thin tissue samples for research purposes. One of my schlub tasks was to sharpen the microtome blades on a special machine. The head of the lab warned me to be extremely careful with the blades. They are so sharp that they do hardly any tissue damage and if you were to say, cut your finger, it would be a difficult task to stop the bleeding.
So, these sapphire blades at 80 atoms have to be extremely sharp. What if you did somehow cut yourself? Maybe I’ll rethink my intrigue of trying out a sapphire blade.