Prosthetic Conscience

Doing things the old fashioned way

There are a few things that I do “the old fashioned way,” by which I mean I use tools that are generally considered obsolete. The main ones are writing with a fountain pen, and shaving with a double-edged safety razor. I also use a lot more hand tools when woodworking than other people do, but that’s only partly by choice; there are a lot of power tools I’d use if I had room to store them and a place to use them. But sticking to the writing and the shaving, I find two advantages with the old-fashioned tools.

1. The results are better.

   I can get a better, and less irritating shave with a double-edged safety razor than with a cartridge razor. Even when I was using a cartridge razor, I got a better shave with soap, mug, and brush, than with canned pressurized shaving cream. Writing with a fountain pen produces a darker, wetter, and more even line than a gel, rollerball, or ballpoint, though some gel pens are close. If you write in a script that uses line variation (e.g. italic or copperplate), then you need to use a fountain pen (either italic or flexible) to get that line width variation.

2. It’s cheaper and more environmentally friendly

   Bottled fountain pen ink is much, much cheaper than refills for common gel pens. When you replace the ink in a gel, rollerball, or ballpoint pen, you also replace the nib and the vessel that contains the ink. When you replace the ink in a fountain pen, you just replace the ink, nothing else. The ink comes in a glass bottle from which you can refill the pen dozens of times, saving on packaging each time.

   Double edged razor blades are also much cheaper than cartridge razor blades. Even high-end blades bought in a sample pack (much more expensive than buying in bulk) are only about half the price of store-brand cartridge blades. Compare buying double-edged blades in bulk to name-brand cartridge blades, and the factor increases to ten-to-one. When you replace a cartridge blade, you also replace the plastic head of the razor, and there is quite a bit of packaging. When you replace a double-edged blade, you only replace the blade, and the blades often come in minimal packaging, though that varies by brand.

   My father tells me about his father honing double-edged blades on the inside of a water glass to get more use out of them, because he could not afford to buy them very often. By today’s standards, even using a DE razor at all is thrifty. It would be even thriftier and more environmentally friendly to use a straight razor, but those have a steeper learning curve than safety razors, and are, frankly, scary. Another possibility is a single-edged safety razor with a permanent blade which can be removed and sharpened, such as the Rolls Razor.

Why is it that these older technologies are both better and cheaper than what we use today? Why do we use clearly inferior technology? I think the main answer is marketing and packaging. Modern pens and modern razors are designed primarily to sell refills or replacements, not to do a good job at their nominal tasks. Part of this marketing process is including more packaging with everything, and therefore more waste. Older technologies were more designed to be sold on their merits, and so had to do a better job in order be competitive. Unfortunately, they’re less profitable almost by definition. Maybe one day soon, we’ll all start demanding quality in what we buy, and expect properly made tools to last for generations.

[ Posted: 19:29] | [ Category: ] | Permalink | Comments: 0 ]