Gillette New Biased Pin & Short Pin ... Why?

I think we've lost our way ...

The Gillette/AutoStrop merger was late 1930. Gaisman became GSRC's Chairman.

Roll forward in time to presumably early to mid-1940s and over the pond to Britain. In what would appear to be limited quantities, Gillette produced a minor variant of the twin slot top cap that had short pins which were either symmetrically placed either side of the central post or on a bias, paired with the more regular twin slot flat bottom baseplate. The question is regarding these top caps and their specific purpose when the more regular twin slot would perform the same task and was designed to fit the base plates.

By this point, Gillette blades were the full cutout as per blades we might buy today. Indeed, Gaisman's key patents: 1,633,739 & 1,639,335 were incorporated into the Gillette Blue which was readily available through that period and had been for a good decade. Those patent numbers are on the blade itself. Or, spun the other way around, the Gillette Blue WAS Gaisman's blade, replacing the 'New' blade design. This design has not changed at all since 1934.

Specifically, what then was the purpose of the short pins, either symmetrically placed or on a bias?

I don't think it is about fitting a specfic Gillette blade since Gillette blades now featured the somewhat universal cutout which provided compatibility with a whole range of Gillette and competitors' razors. I don't think it is about fitting the competition's blades (see the period advert on page 2), since the long slot or the twin slot would fit all of those blades as well.
 
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Does not answer the question at hand.
 
I think we have an answer ...

That chap on B&B came back to me by PM and proposed an idea which yes, folks have touched upon ("it's about Glaisman", right?) and we were all certainly pointing in the right direction ... just looking at it from the wrong angle.

Stumped because it would appear to be the most minimal amount of metal required to fit absolutely all of Glaisman's designs, yet GIllette had already standardised on the Gillette Blue style blade which these caps fit without issue.

No, flip it the other way around ...

For competitors, any blade design even slightly resembling the Gillette Blue would infringe on some patent or other, so their designs were often wildly different. Most would be based around a long slot but would often have a much larger aperture in the middle. Some of Gillette's caps would hold these in place, particularly the long slotted New cap.

So, it's not about whether a blade would fit ... but whether it would HOLD.

These caps would appear to be the most minimal amount of metal to hold all of GILLETTE designed blades, but many (hopefully all, presumably) of their competitors blades would fit, but would not be hold perfectly in place ... their blades might slop around or be difficult to centre. With these short and biased pin caps, for the competition, there's always be a either piece of metal in the way or a gap where a retaining post would be required.

Back to the Gillette Blue design ...

That's a blade that yes, might well fit all manner of razors; even the competition. More importantly (to Gillette), it is absolutely backwards compatible with ALL of their razors and as a bonus, contains so many patent components that they make it almost impossible for the competition to design anything close.

So, bottom line ...

It's not about whether a blade might fit, but whether it will hold.
 
The Wardonia blade is a clever design because their razors saw the outward retaining posts move from being much closer than the regular Gillette cap to further out than the regular Gillette cap ... but never in the same place as the regular Gillette cap. Avoiding patent overlap, I guess?

The summary we came to about the short/bias pin caps was that is was not so much about ensuring compatibility for Gillette razors, but spoiling compatibility for everyone else's blades when used in a Gillette razor. What we're seeing from everyone else's blades are designs that don't step on the toes of any of Gillette's numerous patents ... and remember that Gillette itself was taken hostage by the made patenteer (Gaisman) who ended up taking owning the company!

The was some real innovation going on here ... both to avoid patents and to somehow patent every computation into one design.

Back to the Wardonia Barrel Hole ... it's clever because it also works with Gillette's three post cap (the 'Old') without being made to work with it, thereby infringing upon a patent as well as the twin slotted cap (the 'New' ... certainly in England where Wardonia's market predominantly was).
 
Super interesting thread.

Razor blade shortages were brought up in parliament quite a bit.


Wonder if there was gov pressure on Gillette to produce more accessible razors? Eventually resulting in a return to the basic 3 post baseplate and caps with no corner tabs?
 
Would this be a rough FB cap timeline? (years are approximate with lots of parts spillover etc)

1933?-1940: Standard FB proprietary 2x pin/corner guides. (Sometime from 1936-37 pins with wings show up briefly, a bit like '38 aristocrat)

1940-42: Adds crease in cap dome, shorter corner guides? (Revised design to go alongside solid guard bar baseplates?)

1943-1945: Caps start becoming more inclusive to fit other manufacturers blades as the war continues (short/bias/post pins, removing corner guides etc)

1946-1950: Design reverts back to the 1940 proprietary cap (any minor differences?)

1950+: Full length pin to fit new stamped Tech baseplate. (Full circle back to the OG 'New')

Wonder where the full slot New/Tech comes in?
 
This post might help @creamgravy ... there's a picture, which "is worth a thousand words"

Curious Journey of the British Gillette Tech

I have posted a similar picture before in one of the many Gillette Tech mega-threads, but decided to make up a fresh one and re-arrange the models to show a developmental timeline but also show certainly a couple of side roads. Straight into it ... Building Baselines ... 1 Gillette New (USA) -...
www.theshavingroom.co.uk
 

TobyC said:
Well crap, I guess I didn't answer the question. I don't know why they did that, then again, I don't know why they made so many variations of pretty much every thing they made.
Click to expand...

I did not answer this correctly!!!

That is NOT a Goodwill, that's just a regular New.

The Goodwill razors came free with the purchase of a pack of New blades, so you got a free razor as incentive to start using the New blades, the OLD three hole blades wouldn't fit.

Gillette Goodwill models

Now that I have 3 different Goodwill's, I have to declare a winner of the trio. I'm still looking for any of the South American Goodwills, which are based on the SC base plate as well as the solid bar version. If you happen to have one of those for sale, please let me know :D . I see a lot of...
www.badgerandblade.com





1931 Gillette - Goodwill — Razor Archive

www.razorarchive.com


Gillette Goodwill Razors- Vintage Safety Razor

Collection of Gillette razors and with ranking and lots of information
www.vintage-razor.com


.
 
Another snippet, sorry if it's already been posted. You see a lot of 7oclock FB New heads with the bias pin cap ...and they all seem to come in the green/brown bakelite case with circle mold lines inside the lid (left and right of the logo)



This suggests they were made before 1936. Around this time Gillette started using improved molds/design for both #25 and #77 bakelite boxes (removed these mold lines and changed the hinge)

The UK design team must've been working hard to grief the competition throughout the 30s (USA just had better lawyers?? )
 
Long pin/short pin.
 
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