A tale of two Tuckaways

[Frankie0210]

Hi to you. Thank you!

 

[alexanderoverseas]

It would be cool if someone who has both versions could post side view photos (with blades in) to compare the two. I'm thinking that the width of the base will affect where the top cap makes contact and definitely influence the angles and exposure. a Wider base would increase the cutting angle, right? Although it might be so little that it doesn't affect the shave that much as evidenced by the shave tests.

Here is an old photo from the 'Photo Analysis of Razor Designs' thread.

View attachment 787684

Hi there, I posted some pics along with some observations between the two over here:

Gillette New Improved: thicker vs thinner base plate

 

[jmudrick]

OK, there was definitely a change to the New Improved head late in its run. In the first image below all three guard plates are from American Gillettes. The first from the left is a 1927 silver Tuckaway, the center one is a 1929 chromium Tuckaway, and the last on the right is an unserialed NEW DeLuxe. Notice how the dimensions of the '29 guard plate are more or less identical to the NEW DeLuxe. It seems pretty clear that this change was an evolution towards the NEW DeLuxe head.

In the second image I've tried to capture the profiles of the two Tuckaways to show how different they actually are.

I just love finding transitional forms like this. Really great find, Corny! [emoji106]

This excerpt from a legal judgement makes clear that a 1928 redesign was made to address problems with blade breakage.

GILLETTE SAFETY RAZOR CO. | 60 F.2d 1019 (1932) | f2d10191748 | Leagle.com

 

[tonich]

Thank you for this update!

 

[jmudrick]

Thank you for this update!

Interesting ain't it? Needless to say Gillette wasn't doing any recalls of the earlier blade busting version. Gillette had a lot of quality problems with blades well into the 30s.