Fatip Piccolo - finish quality

Supermangs said:
I can see the Fatip getting a lot of use alongside my 37C. But to your point, can anyone explain to me why it is so hard/expensive to make razors out of stainless steel? What are the drivers of the pricing increase here? I have stainless steel forks - they are bloody cheap!
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Stainless steel forks can be produced en-masse, there's a huge market for them and they don't require much in the way of precision, it it's vaguely fork-shaped and doesn't have rough edges it'll work just fine. They're also a simple enough shape that they can probably be stamped.

Double edged razors are a niche market, stainless steel ones even more so. Setting up to cast stainless is going to be expensive and you're probably not going to have enough of a market share to make it worthwhile. CNC machining is expensive to set up, requires specialist skills to program, and doesn't scale. If you want to machine two razors at once you need a second machine, and they cost tens of thousands. Unless you happen to already have a machine shop and are doing razors as a sideline (Timeless, Wolfman) you'll need to either swallow the setup costs or contract a machine shop to do it for you, and they charge handsomely for machine time. You also need to meet a level of quality for it to even work as a razor, look at Weber with the wonky heads that wouldn't hold a blade straight and the problems that beset Rockwell's first attempt. Increase the QC requirements and you increase the cost to manufacture, and that pushes the price up.

This is why there are few people producing stainless razors, and while they're selling well at the price that they're charging there's no incentive for them to try and make them cheaper.

There is also the more cynical thought that if you sell a zamak razor and the head snaps off if it's dropped, the user will need to buy another.

As for a stainless Fatip, arguably brass is the better material for a razor. It's more corrosion-resistant, cheaper to work with, and the number of 100 year old Gillettes are testament to the fact that it's more than up to the job.
 
chris.hale said:
Stainless steel forks can be produced en-masse, there's a huge market for them and they don't require much in the way of precision, it it's vaguely fork-shaped and doesn't have rough edges it'll work just fine. They're also a simple enough shape that they can probably be stamped.

Double edged razors are a niche market, stainless steel ones even more so. Setting up to cast stainless is going to be expensive and you're probably not going to have enough of a market share to make it worthwhile. CNC machining is expensive to set up, requires specialist skills to program, and doesn't scale. If you want to machine two razors at once you need a second machine, and they cost tens of thousands. Unless you happen to already have a machine shop and are doing razors as a sideline (Timeless, Wolfman) you'll need to either swallow the setup costs or contract a machine shop to do it for you, and they charge handsomely for machine time. You also need to meet a level of quality for it to even work as a razor, look at Weber with the wonky heads that wouldn't hold a blade straight and the problems that beset Rockwell's first attempt. Increase the QC requirements and you increase the cost to manufacture, and that pushes the price up.

This is why there are few people producing stainless razors, and while they're selling well at the price that they're charging there's no incentive for them to try and make them cheaper.

There is also the more cynical thought that if you sell a zamak razor and the head snaps off if it's dropped, the user will need to buy another.

As for a stainless Fatip, arguably brass is the better material for a razor. It's more corrosion-resistant, cheaper to work with, and the number of 100 year old Gillettes are testament to the fact that it's more than up to the job.
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Many thanks, @chris.hale , for such a fulsome answer.
 
Bogeyman said:
A better question is why so many are obsessed with having a stainless DE/SE razor as if somehow they shave better, or are wanting a razor to survive a Zombie holocaust.
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I see your point in that I could drop my Fatip ten times and lay out £200 or buy a stainless steel razor for £200 that may or may not survive being dropped ten times.

As an aside, how many people have worn out a 37c during their shaving career?

Had my 3rd shave with the Fatip this morning. I am rather obsessed with this little Italian beauty. As it happens, I am heading to Italy this summer, but can't see myself buying that much. I have enough Proraso to last a year or two, my Omega boar has another ten years left in it, and those are the easiest items to find. That said, if I stumble across those new Proraso AS/EDCs somewhere, I might be gettin' myself some of them.
 
One of the things I like about the Fatip is that they're so cheap, but they work really well.

I don't know about the 37c, but I've seen quite a few posts where an EJ89 head has snapped off or the plating has been compromised on the threaded stud and it's rotted.
 
Supermangs said:
I see your point in that I could drop my Fatip ten times and lay out £200 or buy a stainless steel razor for £200 that may or may not survive being dropped ten times...
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Or you could buy a £5 rug to lay at your feet to cushion a dropped razor fall and give me the £195 for such sound advice. :D ;)
 
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