How to disassemble a US made early TTO Aristocrat
The pieces pictured below are all the parts what make up and hold this razor together. Nomenclature for parts from top-left to bottom-right: silo doors and hinge contraption, handle cylinder, TTO cylinder, outer screw, inner screw.
If you look down the barrel of the 'TTO cylinder' you will see the 'inner screw' and the 'outer screw':
For the first step of disassembly we need to remove these two screws with a screw driver and a proprietary tool which I remade out of a brass pipe (carving the two ears using a ceramic bit on a Dremel tool - this can probably be done multiple ways). I will refer to these two tools as the 'flat head' and the 'pipe head' respectively.
Shown here without the rest of the razor, for clarity, the 'outer screw' is screwed around the tip of the 'silo doors and hinge contraption' and the 'inner screw' is screwed into the 'outer screw'. You must first remove the 'inner screw' by holding down the 'outer screw' with the 'pipe head' and unscrewing the 'inner screw' with the 'flat head'. The 'inner screw' should drop out and you can proceed to unscrew the 'outer screw' with the 'pipe head'.
To remove the 'silo doors and hinge contraption' you must first pinch together these two sets of mushroomed ears:
Then twist open the razor as you usually would to insert a blade though don't stop until you can lift off the 'silo doors and hinge contraption':
Finally, pull the 'TTO cylinder' out of the 'handle cylinder'. You will have to pull hard because they are held together by a groove and collar - the two rings shown here:
Reflections and Motivations
So why would we do this??? Well, this specific type of razor, I believe, was the first TTO razor designed and sold by Gillette. The design has some flaws and with some razors, these flaws can make the razor hard to work with - usually the TTO action is rough. For these cases, taking the razor apart allows us to possibly remedy these flaws so we can enjoy a like new TTO mechanism. Here are some flaws I have identified:
The pinch point on the 'silo doors and hinge contraption' can become loose and act as a pivot. This allows the head to wobble and can cause the TTO action to be quite rough. You can see, in later TTO models, that Gillette fixed this flaw by having two pinch points. Now that we have the razor disassembled, one can imaging multiple ways to retighten this pinch point.
The following flaw was(is) a problem with this particular razor. I don't completely understand it at this point but when the razor is fully assembled, there is a little bit of axial play between the 'TTO cylinder' and the 'handle cylinder'. When the 'TTO cylinder' is pulled a little out of the 'handle cylinder' (as pictured below), the TTO action is incredibly rough. Only when the TTO knob is flush with the 'handle cylinder' can the razor be twisted open. Somehow I need to get rid of this axial play...
The pieces pictured below are all the parts what make up and hold this razor together. Nomenclature for parts from top-left to bottom-right: silo doors and hinge contraption, handle cylinder, TTO cylinder, outer screw, inner screw.
If you look down the barrel of the 'TTO cylinder' you will see the 'inner screw' and the 'outer screw':
For the first step of disassembly we need to remove these two screws with a screw driver and a proprietary tool which I remade out of a brass pipe (carving the two ears using a ceramic bit on a Dremel tool - this can probably be done multiple ways). I will refer to these two tools as the 'flat head' and the 'pipe head' respectively.
Shown here without the rest of the razor, for clarity, the 'outer screw' is screwed around the tip of the 'silo doors and hinge contraption' and the 'inner screw' is screwed into the 'outer screw'. You must first remove the 'inner screw' by holding down the 'outer screw' with the 'pipe head' and unscrewing the 'inner screw' with the 'flat head'. The 'inner screw' should drop out and you can proceed to unscrew the 'outer screw' with the 'pipe head'.
To remove the 'silo doors and hinge contraption' you must first pinch together these two sets of mushroomed ears:
Then twist open the razor as you usually would to insert a blade though don't stop until you can lift off the 'silo doors and hinge contraption':
Finally, pull the 'TTO cylinder' out of the 'handle cylinder'. You will have to pull hard because they are held together by a groove and collar - the two rings shown here:
Reflections and Motivations
So why would we do this??? Well, this specific type of razor, I believe, was the first TTO razor designed and sold by Gillette. The design has some flaws and with some razors, these flaws can make the razor hard to work with - usually the TTO action is rough. For these cases, taking the razor apart allows us to possibly remedy these flaws so we can enjoy a like new TTO mechanism. Here are some flaws I have identified:
The pinch point on the 'silo doors and hinge contraption' can become loose and act as a pivot. This allows the head to wobble and can cause the TTO action to be quite rough. You can see, in later TTO models, that Gillette fixed this flaw by having two pinch points. Now that we have the razor disassembled, one can imaging multiple ways to retighten this pinch point.
The following flaw was(is) a problem with this particular razor. I don't completely understand it at this point but when the razor is fully assembled, there is a little bit of axial play between the 'TTO cylinder' and the 'handle cylinder'. When the 'TTO cylinder' is pulled a little out of the 'handle cylinder' (as pictured below), the TTO action is incredibly rough. Only when the TTO knob is flush with the 'handle cylinder' can the razor be twisted open. Somehow I need to get rid of this axial play...
