Introducing the Blackland Era - 100% stainless steel. 3D printed. $75
- Thread starter Blackland Razors
- Start date
Only black for now. Of course, it's still steel.
Holyzeus
Forum GOD!
Hectorsgaf
Well used member
Shane - I think I mentioned this on the other thread but do we know the blade gaps for each plate please?
Hectorsgaf
Well used member
2nd that..Thank goodness, I may finally be able to buy a Blackland.
I have some time right now so I figured I'd share a bit more detail of how this works.
Printer
The printer itself is like a big vending machine. Inside it is a build area with the footprint around the size of a laptop. Internal to the printer are also several regular CNC endmills arranged in parallel above the build volume.
Material
The printer uses the same metal powder used for MIM. Since batches vary minutely in mechanical properties, each batch of powder is first tested and then the printers are calibrated to adjust for the specific traits of that batch of powder to ensure consistent builds across powder batches. The powder itself is basically like sand with specific grain size.
Printing
Note: These are layman's terms. Everything here is tightly controlled and extremely specific, but I'll use loose terms for simplicity.
First, we lay down a layer of metal powder, the thickness of which depends on the part and also on the particular area of the part. Areas with curves or tight details need a higher number of thin layers. Straight areas can get away with fewer slightly thicker layers. Then the powder layer gets sprayed down with a binding agent that keeps it firm (like adding water to sand for a sandcastle).
Now that the layer is bound and rigid, the CNC endmills come down and machine the outline of the part. This is like a router sort of. Imagine making a pyramid by stacking ever-smaller squares cut from plywood. Since the layer isn't sintered, it's really easy and quick to machine. When the layer has been cut, we repeat the process. Another layer of powder, spray it with binding agent, CNC the shape. Repeat hundreds of times until the parts have been built fully.
Now the build volume is completely full of that bound powder and dozens of parts. It's one big solid hunk that we call the cake. The cake is rigid and solid, but brittle. The cake gets removed for processing. Then cake is broken apart by hand (this will be automated eventually) and the parts are removed.
Sintering
At this stage, the parts are brittle and oversized. This is what we call a green part and it's basically the same stage that MIM parts are in when they come out of the mold. Rather than molding, we just build the parts directly. The green parts can be snapped in half with your hands.
The green parts are then sintered (heated in a super-hot furnace). This causes the binding agent to drop out and the metal powder fuses together creating solid metal with about 99% the density of billet steel. The part also shrinks. Controlling this shrinking is the most difficult part of the process because shrinkage is not uniform. The safety bar portion shrinks a bit differently than the main body of the base plate and maybe it shrinks differently in the x-axis than it does in the y. So all those little features have to be oversized in very specific ways so that when it shrinks you wind up where you want to be. Otherwise you get warping.
Post operations
It's basically impossible to 100% nail down that shrinking for the kind of precision we need on shave-critical surfaces. So we tidy things up by CNC machining those critical areas to make sure that all the shaving geometry is perfect and tightly toleranced. This ensures perfectly flat blade clamping and perfect exposure/gap.
There are also a lot of QC checkpoints on the way that I won't really get into. Some are automated or semi-automated and some are more traditional. Plus final finishing.
And also the handle, post, and stand are CNC machined elsewhere and then finished so there's traditional CNC work going on in the background.
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89mm
No. I'm not sure we'll share the blade gaps. I don't really find them relevant and it creates a lot of confusion, especially for inexperienced shavers. We'll be improving the aggressiveness scale and using qualitative comparisons to describe performance which I think is far more useful.
Hectorsgaf
Well used member
I understand where you are coming from but personally I would find the information useful especially assuming that the base price will be for one plate included only.
Yea I respect that. It’s a delicate balance to appeal to both veterans and newcomers alike. Ultimately we won’t be able to create the perfect system for everyone, but I think between qualitative comparisons and the tons of reviews (from both “pros” and regular customers) everybody should be able to navigate the base plate options. After all, I haven’t published blade gaps in years and people have still managed to understand how our razors shave. So I don’t think this will be much different.
HereticHermit
Forum GOD!
Good news for users with carpal tunnel syndrome and those who prefer midweight razors.
I am in for one when aggressiveness charts are out. Without specific plate details I will be floundering in lala land.
I am in for one when aggressiveness charts are out. Without specific plate details I will be floundering in lala land.
I like what Italian Barber / RazoRock did in coming out with a list that categorizes all of their razors by levels of efficiency.
Right. Yea we do basically the same thing via an aggressiveness rating from 1-10. I think it's a little weird to have different blade platforms on the same list because I think it's hard to compare SE v DE directly in that way.
But don't worry, guys. Base plate selection will be clarified in due time. Reviewers will also help make this clear for customers.
That's the idea! But with more base plate options, better ability to meet demand and maintain inventory, better blade clamping, better lather flow-through, and better packaging. Should be a good product if we can manage to not screw it up!