To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Morris D. Fletcher, a citizen of the United States of America, residing at Springfield, in the county of Hampden and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Safety-Razor-Blade Holder, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to improvements in devices for holding the small blades of safety-razors while being stropped, and consists of two handles provided with jaw portions which have means for retaining a blade securely in place between them, the said two handles and jaws being separable, and of fastening means for the separable members, all as hereinafter set forth.

The object of my invention is to provide a strong, durable, simple and inexpensive device of the class specified, which can be easily and quickly manipulated for the purpose of securing and releasing the blade and is withal convenient and efficient. I attain this object by the means illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which—

Figure 1 is a front elevation of one form of my holder with a razor blade in position therein; Fig. 2, a longitudinal section of said holder, taken on lines 2—2 looking in the direction of the arrow 8 in Fig. 1; Fig. 3, a vertical section on lines 33 looking in the direction of the arrow 9 in Fig. 1; Fig. 4, a vertical section on lines 4—4 looking in the direction of the arrow 10 in Fig. 1; and Fig. 5, an inside face view of one of the holder members illustrating a modified form of construction, the position which a razor blade occupies therein being indicated by dot-and-dash lines.

Similar figures refer to similar parts throughout the several views.

One of the essential features, in a device of this kind, is to so construct the device that it can be readily opened to receive or release the blade and as readily closed to secure the blade in proper position for stropping, a result which I am able to obtain with my invention.

Some safety-razor blades have holes therein adjacent to the ends while others do not, hence it is desirable to provide means for holding both kinds. For the perforated blade the holder is provided with pins adapted to enter the holes therein, while for the imperforate blade the holder is provided with a recess in which such blade is received. Either of these features may be employed with the other features of the invention. Referring now to the drawings and first to Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4, it will be observed that I provide two independent and separable pieces which constitute the front and back of the holder and each of which comprises a jaw portion and a handle portion. The front jaw and handle are represented at 11 and 12, respectively, and the back jaw and handle are represented at 13 and 14, respectively. The jaws 11 and 13 are given a shape externally which will enable the blade held therebetween, to be presented and applied to the strop in the best manner and to the best advantage, such shape being most clearly shown in Fig. 3. The handles 12 and 14 are shaped externally to fit the hand of the operator, and their interior surfaces or faces are substantially flat as are also the inside faces of the jaws 11 and 13. The formation of these parts is such that when the front and back pieces are put together without any blade between their contiguous faces coincide throughout, unless possibly there be a little divergence or separation of the jaw portions, for, be it remembered, the blade which this device is designed to hold is very thin. Projecting forward from the inside face of the jaw 13 are two pins 15 properly spaced apart to enter the holes in a razor blade 16 when such blade is placed on said jaw, and properly located to position said blade with one cutting edge extending beyond the thin edge of the jaw while the rest of the blade is within the jaw area. The jaw 11 on the inside is counter-sunk at 17—17 to receive the heads of the pins 15, such counter-sinks being necessarily elongated to permit of longitudinal movement on the part of one or both of the holder pieces, the reason for such movement being stated below. Locking pins 18, generally two, are set in the handle 14, and each of such pins has a neck 19 and a head 20 which project beyond the inside face of said handle. The heads 20 are larger than the necks 19 of the pins 18. In the handle 14 are the same number of slots 21 as there are pins 18, and each of said slots is large enough at one end to admit the head of a pin while it is constricted at the opposite end to the size of the neck of such pin which is received therein. The location and arrangement of the pins 18 and of the slots 21 are such, in the present case, that the two holder pieces can be locked together by bringing them into juxtaposition with the pin heads 20 in the larger ends of the slots 21 and then moving one or both pieces longitudinally to cause the necks 19 to enter the smaller ends of said slots and said heads to bear on the portions of the handle 12 which border such smaller ends; so in practice, the blade 16 is placed on the jaw 13 with the pins 15 in the holes in said blade, when the pieces are separated, and then the pieces are brought together and locked. The exposed edge of the blade 16 can now be stropped like the edge of any razor blade. After stropping the pieces are unlocked by sliding one or both of them endwise to bring the pin heads 20 again into the larger ends of the slots 21 and so releasing the handle 12 from frictional engagement with said heads, and then separated to enable the blade to be taken out and either turned over and replaced to have its other edge stropped or removed altogether. It will now be clearly understood why it is necessary to elongate the counter-sinks 17.

For a blade in which there are no holes adapted to receive pins, I omit the pins from the jaw 13 and recess said jaw as shown at 22 in Fig. 5. The recess 22, like the pins 15, is so situated as to cause one cutting edge of the blade to be exposed beyond the thin edge of the holder a sufficient distance for stropping purposes. The ends of the recess 22 conform to the angular or curved outlines of the ends of the blade, consequently a blade placed in such recess and held there by the two pieces of the holder cannot get out or move about. The holder for the imperforate blade is like the holder for the perforated blade in all respects except as noted, only, of course, the counter-sinks 17 in the front jaw are not needed when such jaw is employed with the imperforate blade.

It is understood that the rearrangements mentioned may be utilized and that various other changes in form, proportions, size, and minor details of construction may be made without departing from the spirit or sacrificing any of the advantages of the invention.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is—

1. A safety-razor blade holder comprising two separable jaws adapted to receive a razor blade between them and having integral handles in sliding relation to each other, means to retain such blade in place between said jaws, and fastening means for the separable parts.

2. The combination, in a safety-razor blade holder, of two jaws adapted to retain a razor blade in place between them, a handle provided with a locking pin, and another handle slotted to receive and engage said locking pin, said handles being in sliding relation to each other for locking and releasing purposes.

3. The combination, in a safety-razor blade holder, of a jaw provided with blade-engaging pins and having a handle, a second jaw also having a handle, said handles being mutually reciprocal for locking and releasing purposes, and locking pins projecting from the inside face of one of such handles, the other handle being slotted to receive and engage said locking pins.

4. The combination, in a safety-razor blade holder, of a jaw provided with blade-engaging pins and having a handle, a second jaw having elongated counter-sinks to receive the heads of said pins and also provided with a handle, and locking pins projecting from the inside face of one of such handles, the other handle being slotted to receive and engage said locking pins.

Morris D. Fletcher.

Witnesses:

P. H. Martin,

F. A. Cutter.