pasted hanging canvas

[Pudu]

Does a canvas hanging strop work well for paste?

I'm just learning how to use my first straight. But one of the best bits so far is the beautiful, quality heirloom strop from Tony. It is such a pleasure to use and simply oozes charm and quality.

Anyway, my razor wasn't up to the task of tackling my rather tough whiskers - it would catch and pull without cutting. Being that the nearest expert with a hone on B&B or SRP seems to be many thousands of miles away (and undoubtedly several months by post) I fashioned a paddle from balsa and CrO powder. It works pretty well and twixt it and the linen from Tony, which sounds awesome with a blade stroking it, I got the blade keened up a bit and have had a respectable first few shaves.

I much prefer the action on the hanging strop, finding the paddle to be more awkward. I've been thinking that one of Tony's canvas strops pasted with CrO on one side and diamond on the other would fit "my mileage" better than a paddle.

Is this done, does it work, is there a fatal flaw in my grand plan?

Thanks for any advice.

- And to reiterate what everyone here already knows, Tony was terrificly responsive and helpful. When I put in a last minute request for a strop to be sent to some friends about to come to Africa he made it happen and saved me weeks of waiting for it. I don't know how well shaved he is, but he is certainly a gentleman.

[joke1176]

I have an old linen strop that I put 0.5 micron Chrome Oxide on. Works great for me when I get "stuck" at a sharpness plateu when honing. But I am a honing novice...

At any rate, it works very well for me, but I haven't put any diamond paste on the other side yet, so no advice about that.

[2Sharp]

I have used both pasted hanging and pasted paddle strops and much prefer the pasted paddle. I like the hanging plain strop for daily stropping.

bj

[jlander]

I have used both pasted hanging and pasted paddle strops and much prefer the pasted paddle. I like the hanging plain strop for daily stropping.

bj

+1

[Pudu]

I have an old linen strop that I put 0.5 micron Chrome Oxide on. Works great for me when I get "stuck" at a sharpness plateu when honing. But I am a honing novice...

At any rate, it works very well for me, but I haven't put any diamond paste on the other side yet, so no advice about that.

Thanks, for the feedback. I have found some unblemished latigo so I think I'll try making a hanging CrO strop using that. I don't have any quick access to diamond paste at the moment in any event.

I spent another chunk of time with my cheapo paddle and feel a bit more comfortable with it however I still much prefer the feel of my TM hanging strop.

Cheers

[Thebigspendur]

In general you don't put abrasive pastes on a canvas strop. You would put it on leather. However it works for you so just carry on.

[joke1176]

In general you don't put abrasive pastes on a canvas strop. You would put it on leather. However it works for you so just carry on.

I agree, but I didn't want to buy another piece of leather, and I had an old linen strop just sitting there...:blushing:

[Seraphim]

I went to Sears and picked up a nice canvas belt (1 1/2") made by Levi's for $10. It was very flat, not rounded at the edges or anything strange like that.

I took it back to my laboratory, cut it in half, added some copper tubing strop stabilizers (patents pending...:wink:) that keep the strop flat, and also give me something to hang it/grab it by.

I gave it a coat of Crome Ox, and stropped up my Friodur...Sweetness.

It is cheap, effective, and I still have the other half of the belt to load up with 1um paste too.:biggrin:

Here's a crummy diagram of how I folded the ends over around a piece of copper tubing at each end. I used Gorilla glue to fasten the folded over part. I passed a piece of heavy line through the tubing to hang it by.

[JayKay]

I'm no expert, but isnt linen much more abrasive than leather? And than adding paste to that would make it extremely abrasive which seems like it would be almost aproaching a reallllllly fine hone. If it works, go for it. But over a long period of time couldnt that cause premature hone wear?

[Seraphim]

Well, isn't that what we are all up against?

We need our razors sharp- and thus have to hone/paste them. Honing removes metal, and thus reduces our razor lifetime.

We can simply look upon this as a justification for buying more razors!:w00t:

Another thing: as has been mentioned before, a pasted strop is for edge tune-up, not daily stropping.

And one more thing: I have two Henckels Friodurs 7/8's. To wear them down to the point where they would be 6/8's would be to remove 3175 microns of steel from the edge. Go big razors!!!:tongue_sm

Let's say, for the sake of an argument, that if you pasted strop with 0.5um paste that you remove 1 micron of material per stropping (purely conjecture, mind you, I don't know how much is actually removed when using 0.5um pastes?). If you 0.5um paste strop your razor once a week, you will only lose 50 microns of edge over the course of a year. That's 0.05mm, which is pretty small.

If, on the other hand you take your razor to the 8k hone, assuming a 3 micron relative grit size (as per a DMT EE), that edge wear is accelerated by a factor of 6, 0.3mm per annum all else being equal (i.e. honing once a week). 3 years in, and you've lost about 1 mm of material, that's significant.

Since back in the good ol' days, an 8k was probably the "standard" hone, it is east to understand why so many vintage razors exhibit hone wear.

I'm not so worried about hone wear from my 0.5um pastes, I rather worry about pursuing that Perfect Edge!:001_smile

[Pudu]

I'm no expert, but isnt linen much more abrasive than leather? And than adding paste to that would make it extremely abrasive which seems like it would be almost aproaching a reallllllly fine hone. If it works, go for it. But over a long period of time couldnt that cause premature hone wear?

I think it would only abrade to the level of the coarsest element. That is, if CrO is coarser than linen or leather, it wouldn't be especially more abrasive because it was on linen rather than leather. The linen might hold more CrO than leather - but as I understand it, it takes very little paste to do the job.

[joke1176]

I think it would only abrade to the level of the coarsest element. That is, if CrO is coarser than linen or leather, it wouldn't be especially more abrasive because it was on linen rather than leather. The linen might hold more CrO than leather - but as I understand it, it takes very little paste to do the job.

damn right!

[Thebigspendur]

Actually in the old days barbers hones ruled for most people. The reason you see alot of the wear you see on old blades is a combination of protracted use and improper use.

As far as materials go it is more a function of the type of material you are using. A smaller grit size will give you a finer edge and a larger one a rougher edge. Sure you can do a several hundred thousands of strokes on leather to sharpen the blade and many thousands on linen to do the same and hundreds on CrO but why would you want to do it. The old saying the right tool for the job applies here. Depending on what you need to do you use the right hone. You need to grind you use a 1K. You want to set a bevel use a 4K. You want to polish you use an 8K. You want a fine polish use a 12K or the paste equivilents of these for final work. Sure you can play with grit sizes and different hone materials and brands and different kinds of stops and pastes and everyone is encouraged to experiment to find what works best for them but in general this is just the way it seems to work.

[Seraphim]

Here are some pics.

This is my 1.0um cavas belt/strop. Works sweet as can be.

[joke1176]

Here are some pics.

This is my 1.0um cavas belt/strop. Works sweet as can be.

That's how you do it! Red Green would be proud. :w00t: