I purchased some razor blades coated with PTFE. Curious I Googled it and it turns out it’s the wonder material known by the trade name Teflon- Used in no-stick pans, bearings, electrical insulation and “copkiller” bullets. One interesting detail re: the “copkiller” bullets- teflon is used to protect the gun barrel from the bullet; it does not allow the bullet to slip through body armor.
Oh, and the reason my blades are coated in Teflon is I’m a cheap bastard and buy them from Ted Pella, a scientific supply shop. By coating the blades with PFTE, they can be used to slice epoxy. And they slice beards pretty well too.
Cost in bulk- $0.16 each vs. $3.50 per plade for Fusion.
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Actually, Teflon coated bullets were designed not to protect gun barrels, but to pierce windshields. Teflon at certain speeds is slippery, but at other speeds - and against certain materials - is “sticky”. When regular bullets impact a heavilly sloped windshield, they can deflect quite easilly. Cops had a problem shooting at people who were trying to run them down (often failed to penetrate the glass), so they contracted to have some special bullets made up. The result: teflon bullets.
Barrels don’t need much protection from bullets - barrels are made out of steel, and bullets are jacketted in copper, usually, which is much much softer than steel. For a benchrest shooter, the very slight copper build up over time is important (which is why there are special formulations of gun cleaning liquids that cut through copper), but for most people, even people who shoot a lot, a barrel will last a long long time with pretty decent accuracy the whole time.
Why do you slice epoxy?
Pella sells the blades for slicing samples. Maybe the samples are stabilized in epoxy?
Aha, yes, this makes sense. They used to use very hard (stearine) wax for this when I was a kid and had my own microtome stage and blade, but I’m sure they have graduated to better things now. Thanks for the link to the supply place, I may buy some stuff from them.