white dovo strop-paste for linen

[newson]

i recently applied some of the dovo strop-paste for linen (white-coded tube) for the first time, having only ever used the yellow-coded tube on the leather.

i'd always been ambivalent about the linen side, never feeling any benefit.

this paste seems a big improvement on untreated linen. anyone else find the same?

[mparker762]

i'd always been ambivalent about the linen side, never feeling any benefit.

this paste seems a big improvement on untreated linen. anyone else find the same?

How many laps were you doing on the linen side each day before you applied the paste? You may not have been doing enough laps on the linen. Even untreated the linen side acts as a very fine abrasive and will keep your razor very sharp if you use it properly. Adding paste increases the effective grit of the strop which makes it work faster but may have also reduced the level of sharpness it can deliver. This may be an acceptable trade-off for many people though. I've tried other things like Dovo black paste, chrome oxide, and cigar ash, but I keep coming back to the plain untreated linen and just do lots of laps on it.

[joel]

I think the white paste is good stuff, however I find you have to wipe the blade down before you move to the leather, or else you'll taint the leather with the white paste residue.

It works, but it's not worth the hassle for me.

[newson]

to joel:
yep, i'm careful to avoid cross-contamination, thanks. do you bother to use the linen at all? i'd given up completely, prior to this paste experiment.

to mparker762:
i'd only ever tried the old barbershop method of rubbing soap into the linen (on a previous strop, not my current one). the soap made the linen slightly less slippery, but still didn't seem to make any difference to the cutting edge.

number of times across untreated linen? - i'm not sure, maybe 20+ complete back-and-forths with the strop held nice and taut.

i appreciate your comment on the cutting speed/edge-sharpness trade-off. maybe i'll now use the impregnated linen side only when the razor starts to dull.

incidentally, the strop in question is a jemico russian leather i've been using for about five years.

[newson]

one other question: any idea of the size of the abrasive particles in the chalk paste?

[jlander]

to joel:
yep, i'm careful to avoid cross-contamination, thanks. do you bother to use the linen at all? i'd given up completely, prior to this paste experiment.

to mparker762:
i'd only ever tried the old barbershop method of rubbing soap into the linen (on a previous strop, not my current one). the soap made the linen slightly less slippery, but still didn't seem to make any difference to the cutting edge.

number of times across untreated linen? - i'm not sure, maybe 20+ complete back-and-forths with the strop held nice and taut.

i appreciate your comment on the cutting speed/edge-sharpness trade-off. maybe i'll now use the impregnated linen side only when the razor starts to dull.

incidentally, the strop in question is a jemico russian leather i've been using for about five years.

Or try one of Tony's Linen/Canvas combinations. I do it periodically when a blade doesn't seem to get enough improvement on the Latigo/Horsehide. I go for 30 on the canvas and 30 on the linen, then back to the leather. If that doesn't work I go back to the pasted paddle.

[mparker762]

i'd only ever tried the old barbershop method of rubbing soap into the linen (on a previous strop, not my current one). the soap made the linen slightly less slippery, but still didn't seem to make any difference to the cutting edge.

I use shaving lather on the leather side as a substitute for strop conditioner, but have never used it on the linen side.

I thought the Dovo strops were already treated with their white paste from the factory? At least the Jemico Bismark strop that I bought many years ago had it on there, but maybe they've stopped - or maybe the store put it on there themselves. Hmm...

[jlander]

I use shaving lather on the leather side as a substitute for strop conditioner, but have never used it on the linen side.

I thought the Dovo strops were already treated with their white paste from the factory? At least the Jemico Bismark strop that I bought many years ago had it on there, but maybe they've stopped - or maybe the store put it on there themselves. Hmm...

The DOVO russian leather strop I bought from Classic Shaving a while back wasn't treated with anything.

[newson]

to mparker762:
my jemico russian leather strop had no conditioner of any sort on the linen side. i used to rub lather into it on the odd occasion to make it a little less slippery, but that was something i got from an old barbershop manual.
thanks for the feedback.

[Chady]

I've bought one dovo russian from classic and it had paste on the linen side.