The Feather blades blind test

[parapaul]

I would be highly inclined to say your eBay Feathers are fakes. I'm almost certain that Feather 5-packs come with a black card in the front. I'm following this with interest though.

Edit: I was right, I think: http://www.shaving.ie/products/feather-5-pack.html and http://int.classicshaving.com/feath...;___store=new_intl&___from_store=new_intl

 

[buzzy]

Blade #1 - Shave 2




Very good shave. The blade felt a little less sharp than yesterday but not by much.

 

[buzzy]

The square logo with one feather (29*) is supposed to be newer production, and the triangle with two feathers (24*) is supposed to be older. See http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/277497-What-is-status-of-new-logo-Feathers for previous discussion of the logo change. I have a few older packs, all triangle logo, with different numbers: 043409H, 116007J, 212310L. Otherwise they are just like your 24* blades. I guess the trailing letter might be a machine or line designation?


I suspect what you are experiencing is just variation between production runs. No two blades are exactly identical, as hard as they might try to make them so. In between runs they might change to different steel, adjust heat-treatment processes, adjust coatings, etc.

I think that if you can feel differences in sharpness and get a different number of comfortable shaves between production runs there's a problem with quality check somewhere down the line...


How old are your packs? Do you think it's possible that the last 2 digits represent the production year? 09 -> 2009, 10 -> 2010 etc.

I would be highly inclined to say your eBay Feathers are fakes. I'm almost certain that Feather 5-packs come with a black card in the front. I'm following this with interest though.


Edit: I was right, I think: http://www.shaving.ie/products/feather-5-pack.html and http://int.classicshaving.com/feath...;___store=new_intl&___from_store=new_intl

One another forum I saw some posts about yellow 5-packs and people didn't seem to think they were fake...
It's hard to know for sure.

 

[paul.o]

i've got 10 packs of feathers all with 5 blades in and they all look the same package style as the 10 pack i have. could be fake i don't know. i have about 4 blades left in my 10 pack before i find out the quality of the 5's

 

[buzzy]

Blade #1 - Shave 3


Another very good shave.
I still believe this is a #A blade.

 

[jacobwilson99]

Subscribing for results.

I have a 10 pack marked 231313D. Haven't used them so I can't attest.

 

[buzzy]

i've got 10 packs of feathers all with 5 blades in and they all look the same package style as the 10 pack i have. could be fake i don't know. i have about 4 blades left in my 10 pack before i find out the quality of the 5's

What prevent you from opening a 5 pack right now?
I'm glad I opened one before using all my 10 packs because now I keep the blades from the remaining 10 packs for special occasions.

 

[buzzy]

The blades will be shipped tomorrow. I'll have to pick up a package so I will mail them at the same time.
Sorry for the small delay but I didn't want to go to the post office 2 times this week.

 

[paul.o]

Funny you should say that I tried one tonight just to see if there was a difference, the result was a good smooth shave with no pulling, so no complaints from me

 

[mblakele]

I think that if you can feel differences in sharpness and get a different number of comfortable shaves between production runs there's a problem with quality check somewhere down the line...

How old are your packs? Do you think it's possible that the last 2 digits represent the production year? 09 -> 2009, 10 -> 2010 etc.

The YY suffix sounds plausible based on those three samples: 043409H, 116007J, 212310L. But I think we need more data: three samples are too few. Sadly I have no idea when I acquired each pack. I think they came as extras in trades and purchases. Anyway blades can sit on shelves for quite a while, so purchase dates may not correlate well with manufacturing dates.

The QC question would be one for Feather to answer. No doubt they have specifications for their blades, but we do not have access to them. The OP #B blades might have slipped through under spec. Or they might be just within spec, and the #A blades might exceed spec. Without knowing what their specifications are, we cannot say.

Speculating, I can think of a few factors that might produce a better-than-specified blade. To start with, maybe the steel was better than spec. Maybe the heat treatment or the coating application was tuned just right that day. Maybe the edge grinding equipment had just been overhauled. Any or all of those could produce a superior blade. I imagine Feather sets up a blade line when they have enough orders, runs it until the blades drift out of spec, and then stops for maintenance. Repeat until the orders have been filled. The best blades should be the early ones, just after everything has been tuned up.

Speculating again, Feather may target their DE blades at consumers who do not reuse blades. In most places barbers using shavettes have to load a fresh blade for each customer. Recently we learned that some Buddhist monks favor Feathers for shaving their heads. I understand they do this once or twice a month, so they probably use fresh blades too. So while some of us get a number of shaves from these blades, Feather may only care about the first one.

 

[buzzy]

The YY suffix sounds plausible based on those three samples: 043409H, 116007J, 212310L. But I think we need more data: three samples are too few. Sadly I have no idea when I acquired each pack. I think they came as extras in trades and purchases. Anyway blades can sit on shelves for quite a while, so purchase dates may not correlate well with manufacturing dates.

The QC question would be one for Feather to answer. No doubt they have specifications for their blades, but we do not have access to them. The OP #B blades might have slipped through under spec. Or they might be just within spec, and the #A blades might exceed spec. Without knowing what their specifications are, we cannot say.

Speculating, I can think of a few factors that might produce a better-than-specified blade. To start with, maybe the steel was better than spec. Maybe the heat treatment or the coating application was tuned just right that day. Maybe the edge grinding equipment had just been overhauled. Any or all of those could produce a superior blade. I imagine Feather sets up a blade line when they have enough orders, runs it until the blades drift out of spec, and then stops for maintenance. Repeat until the orders have been filled. The best blades should be the early ones, just after everything has been tuned up.

Speculating again, Feather may target their DE blades at consumers who do not reuse blades. In most places barbers using shavettes have to load a fresh blade for each customer. Recently we learned that some Buddhist monks favor Feathers for shaving their heads. I understand they do this once or twice a month, so they probably use fresh blades too. So while some of us get a number of shaves from these blades, Feather may only care about the first one.

That's a quite interresting theory you have there.

The YY suffix is also plausibled based on my 2 samples (242811C and 294513H) but I agree, we need more data.

With #B blades, I find the second shave to be better than the first one so I have a hard time believing they target people who use the blade only once.
If they really aim for that then they should cork the blades right at the factory

Also, I find it weird that I got better-than-specified blades from an official vendor and got so-so blades from eBay.
If it were the other way around then I would not suspect fake / sub par blades as I'm doing right now...

 

[buzzy]

Blade #1 - Shave 4

The first pass felt a little rough on my neck but subsequent passes were all right.
Overall a very good shave.

 

[mblakele]

That's a quite interresting theory you have there.

The YY suffix is also plausibled based on my 2 samples (242811C and 294513H) but I agree, we need more data.

With #B blades, I find the second shave to be better than the first one so I have a hard time believing they target people who use the blade only once.
If they really aim for that then they should cork the blades right at the factory

Also, I find it weird that I got better-than-specified blades from an official vendor and got so-so blades from eBay.
If it were the other way around then I would not suspect fake / sub par blades as I'm doing right now...

If the last two digits are the year, I wonder what the letter means? So far we have seen C and H-L.

Agreed, we do not have enough data to make conclusions about any of this. Your suspicions might well be right. Maybe Feather - or an unauthorized employee - is dumping grade B blades in Thailand. On the other hand your official blades and ebay blades only make up two data points, right? If you tried both purchases again, the quality could be the other way around.

 

[buzzy]

Blade #1 - Shave 5

Very similar to shave #4. Another very good shave.

 

[stew503]

Hi Buzzy,

Can you explain your shave 4 - The first pass felt a little rough on my neck. Was this WTG ?, Did the blade tug ? or something else (describe 'rough').

As shave 4 showed 1st pass issues, was there tugging shave 5 ? (and would the blade have made the 5th shave)

Also how are the shaves ? DFS or not as good ?

(as for me - I complained to "blade manufacturer", who kind of dismissed, but sent a new pack of blades, so I dumped previous blade and had DFS with new blade and 85% with buffing close to BBS (just a few stragglers to usual place right hand side neck!! which made it DFS). With current blades it's a 3 and dispose, so interested to see if I can push a 5.

 

[buzzy]

Hi Buzzy,

Can you explain your shave 4 - The first pass felt a little rough on my neck. Was this WTG ?, Did the blade tug ? or something else (describe 'rough').

As shave 4 showed 1st pass issues, was there tugging shave 5 ? (and would the blade have made the 5th shave)

Also how are the shaves ? DFS or not as good ?

(as for me - I complained to "blade manufacturer", who kind of dismissed, but sent a new pack of blades, so I dumped previous blade and had DFS with new blade and 85% with buffing close to BBS (just a few stragglers to usual place right hand side neck!! which made it DFS). With current blades it's a 3 and dispose, so interested to see if I can push a 5.

It's hard to describe the first pass of shave 4... It was not as sharp as usual, like a little tugging instead of no tugging at all, but only on the neck area. My first pass is North-South and it's not really WTG on the neck... More like somewhere in-between WTG and XTG.

The blade would definitely made it to shave 5 and the shave was DFS.

Shave 5 was almost identical to 4. Very small tugging during the first pass on the neck area and DFS after 3 passes + touch ups.

 

[buzzy]

Blade #1 - Shave 6

The blade felt less sharp on the first pass (neck and cheeks).
Subsequent passes where alright and the shave was DFS.

Normally with my #A blades that's the last shave.
I think I'll try a 7th shave with the blade tomorrow but that may push the blade to its limita.

 

[buzzy]

Blade #1 - Shave 7

Not so comfortable shave. More tugging than shave 6. Definitely should not have done this shave with this blade.

So, I got 6 good shaves out of this blade.

Tomorrow I'll start to shave with #2 blade.

I forgot to mention it but the blades were shipped on Thursday.

 

[driftwood]

If they show up by the 24th I'll do the testing along with the beginning of the 40 days of lanolin.

 

[VerbaVolant]

...- One has a bar code and the other doesn't...

The Feather blades with bar code appeared on the market sometime in August, September of 2013.

...- It's not the same logo

Blade "B" "new logo" appeared on the market at the end of 2011 (October, November).

I hope I remember those facts correctly.