Schick Proline problems with the Vector?

@neongas the dud blade arrived and failed miserably fitting in the Vector. Sure it will perform in Hawk, Claymore or Feather Artist Club SS :)(y)

Could say the failure was an absolute success

Blackland Vector "2" Schick Proline "0"

3Irl5YA.jpg
 
Holiday said:
@neongas the dud blade arrived and failed miserably fitting in the Vector. Sure it will perform in Hawk, Claymore or Feather Artist Club SS :)(y)

Could say the failure was an absolute success

Blackland Vector "2" Schick Proline "0"

3Irl5YA.jpg
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As a matter of interest, is the problem with the spacing of the posts or their size?
 
Gargravarr said:
As a matter of interest, is the problem with the spacing of the posts or their size?
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Very hard to determine if it's size of holes or spacing just using the jewelers glass and calipers are too large
You can rock the blade from one post to the other so the actual size of holes is not a problem.
It does look like the dud blade has an extra mm of blade tab. I am guessing blade tab would not cause offset holes because holes are punched while blades joined
I could easily force it over the tab but would have trouble removing it
1nkjTOW.jpg

Happy to send dud your way @Gargravarr to satisfy curiosity 😼
 
Holiday said:
Very hard to determine if it's size of holes or spacing just using the jewelers glass and calipers are too large
You can rock the blade from one post to the other so the actual size of holes is not a problem.
It does look like the dud blade has an extra mm of blade tab. I am guessing blade tab would not cause offset holes because holes are punched while blades joined
I could easily force it over the tab but would have trouble removing it
1nkjTOW.jpg

Happy to send dud your way @Gargravarr to satisfy curiosity 😼
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That would be great, I'd love to take a look at it. Not because I'm personally worried, as I have at least a dozen years' worth of Schick Proline blades, of which I've sampled a blade from every pack to check that it works with the Vector. I'm just disappointed on behalf of new and future users of this razor, and I'd like to see just how the ball is being dropped.
 
OK, I just got that dud blade from @Holiday, so I got to work with the tools to find out what was wrong. The first thing I did was try it in my Vector, and it fitted with no problem. So next up, I measured the width of the slots: 2.185mm on both this and my own "good" blades. I also checked the spacing, end-to-end of the outer slots. Again, for both blades it was 37.9mm. I then had an "aha!" moment, and measured the distance of the edge of the slots to the blunt edge of the blade. On my blade, that distance was a uniform 1.79mm. On @Holiday's blade however, the two outer slots were 1.79mm from the edge, but the central slot (where the threaded post goes) was 1.60mm from the edge, i.e. it's offset by 0.19mm. In my older razor, it obviously doesn't object to the difference, but I guess it doesn't take much tightening up of tolerances in the new products to make that an issue.
 
Surprised it fitted your Vector @Gargravarr. Hope I did send the dud :)
From your measurements then once the blade is over first post and central threaded post it must be offset by just enough 0.19mm to not slide over the second post
 
Aha. @Holiday tells me the threaded post in his Vector is 2.05mm thick. Mine is just 1.95mm. That difference could easily stop the blade slipping over the posts with that amount of offset at the slot in the blade. Maybe Shane decided to beef up the post for extra strength. That would at least make sense. :unsure:
 
Rabid Badger said:
I hadn't used my Vector for a while, so gave it a whirl the other day (before reading this thread). Low and behold I tried to load a Schick Proline P-30 and the bugger would not fit. So I used a Feather and not probs whatsoever.
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Bugger. It's really sad that Schick are dropping the ball like this, IMO they are definitely the best blades for the Vector. Actually, it occurs to me that since my older Vector isn't so fussy, we could probably do a swap of blades if that works for you. If yours look like they might consistently have similar measurements to @Holiday's "dud", it'll most likely be fine for me, and the one (out of 600) of mine that I've taken time to measure should be fine for you. Perhaps better might be to raise the issue with Schick, but I don't hold out much hope for redress there... :unsure:

Feather might have the better QC, but the blades are just "OK" by comparison.

Edit: I might have to check whether the problematic blades work with the Claymore before going ahead with a swap, but I don't think there would be any problem.
 
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Gargravarr said:
Bugger. It's really sad that Schick are dropping the ball like this, IMO they are definitely the best blades for the Vector. Actually, it occurs to me that since my older Vector isn't so fussy, we could probably do a swap of blades if that works for you. If yours look like they might consistently have similar measurements to @Holiday's "dud", it'll most likely be fine for me, and the one (out of 600) of mine that I've taken time to measure should be fine for you. Perhaps better might be to raise the issue with Schick, but I don't hold out much hope for redress there... :unsure:

Feather might have the better QC, but the blades are just "OK" by comparison.

Edit: I might have to check whether the problematic blades work with the Claymore before going ahead with a swap, but I don't think there would be any problem.
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Schick Proline blades are made directly in Japan, I think they're made from the same factor as Feather, however, I'm not 100% sure.
 
I wonder if it's a variation between batches or a retool in the machinery. The latter would suggest more likely all new prolines will be bad fits.
 
neongas said:
I wonder if it's a variation between batches or a retool in the machinery. The latter would suggest more likely all new prolines will be bad fits.
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I'm guessing they have a misaligned die, so that would make it a batch issue, but without seeing the tooling used for punching out the slots, it's hard to be sure. I have 600 Prolines that I bought early in January, and looking at the top blade in each pack (ie 20 blades in total, which does not constitute a statistically significant sample) they appear to have no offsets in the slots.

That said, there's nothing on the packs to indicate when they were made, so they could be older stock.
 
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Gargravarr said:
I've read "elsewhere" that some shavers have had issues with Schick Proline blades not fitting correctly in the Vector, to the extent that apparently Blackland have taken them off their recommended blade list. Having recently taken delivery of 600 of the mothers, that is not good news, but on the other hand I have never yet had an issue with this. On yet another hand, it takes a long time to get through just one pack, so it might take me a longer time to find out.

Has anyone here had a problem with the Proline? It's still my favorite pick for the Vector, and probably for the Claymore Evo as well.

When I find time, I'll try popping a blade out of every one of the packs that I have to try it for fit, then (with just a bit of effort) pop it back into the injector.
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No issue at all using the Vector with Schick Proline P30 SE blade NONE!!! Otherwise, I would strongly declare all this drama is between the Vector and the shaver. OR maybe a bad batch from Blackland.

Otherwise, I'm just super LUCKY with my Vector and the Schick Proline P30, maybe that's why I'm a very strong Freemason who stands on a very strong stone wall :giggle:
 
SpeedyPC said:
No issue at all using the Vector with Schick Proline P30 SE blade NONE!!! Otherwise, I would strongly declare all this drama is between the Vector and the shaver. OR maybe a bad batch from Blackland.

Otherwise, I'm just super LUCKY with my Vector and the Schick Proline P30, maybe that's why I'm a very strong Freemason who stands on a very strong stone wall :giggle:
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If you take a look towards the end of this thread, you'll see a post where I compared measurements against dimensions of recently machined Vector threaded posts by comparison with a corresponding offset on the Schick blade. I've had no problem with any blade on my older Vector, but you seem to have blades from a batch that fits. I hope you have plenty of those blades. (y)
 
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