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My first sr restoration

Well done - I really like the color of the scales.
Thank you, Me too!!! I actually just put a knot in a shaving brush handle in the same tiffany color
 

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I tried to use a rotary tool with a sandpaper barrel and it was extremely hard to get uniform and gets stuck and creates a divet so my next time around im going all by hand. Thank you for the input
Yeah, beveling the edges of the scales by hand goes a lot faster than you'd think. In fact I have to remind myself not to do too much at the wedge end until I have the wedge in place, because you'll end up taking some more off when you're sanding the wedge to flush after pinning it.
 
Yeah, beveling the edges of the scales by hand goes a lot faster than you'd think. In fact I have to remind myself not to do too much at the wedge end until I have the wedge in place, because you'll end up taking some more off when you're sanding the wedge to flush after pinning it.
Right, sound advice. Thanks for your input! I have to purchase some more 220grit im all out of it. I also got to set up my scroll saw! Ive been using a knew concepts jewelers saw and an irwin coping saw to cut my basic shape and it takes me a good 30 minutes to rough cut my g10 lol

Thanks,
LooneyToons
 

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Thank you for the compliments and your input!! Yes i dislike the lapping film with PSA not for me at all lol. I actually have everything i need to make my balsa strops i just havnt had the time to put them together nor did i ever get a good substrate to glue the balsa to.. ive got the diamond paste the balsa the flattening dmt stone some JB weld i just need some true tile or thick extruded plexiglass from taps plastic.. would i be looking for maybe 3/4” by 12”x4” or would 16” be more ideal?

Thank you
-looney

Do those balsa strops. I think you'll love them.

My strops are made from Bud Nosen 2x3x36 balsa planks with no backer. Light but stiff, no warping. The 2" depth keeps my fingertips well out of the way. I started with 12" strop lengths, but once I made a set at 16" and 18" the 12" went into reserve. The Bud Nosen stuff went way up in price during the pandemic. I found mine at a model train store.

Tap Plastic had great deals for me on 3/4" thick scrap material custom cut to my dimensions (for lapping film). They don't put the thicker scrap out on the floor, so you have to ask. Great customer service at my local Tap here in PDX.
 
Do those balsa strops. I think you'll love them.

My strops are made from Bud Nosen 2x3x36 balsa planks with no backer. Light but stiff, no warping. The 2" depth keeps my fingertips well out of the way. I started with 12" strop lengths, but once I made a set at 16" and 18" the 12" went into reserve. The Bud Nosen stuff went way up in price during the pandemic. I found mine at a model train store.

Tap Plastic had great deals for me on 3/4" thick scrap material custom cut to my dimensions (for lapping film). They don't put the thicker scrap out on the floor, so you have to ask. Great customer service at my local Tap here in PDX.
I have to order online i have no taps plastic near me! Cash is kinda tight now so in a couple months ill order 3x either half inch or 3/4x4x16 do you think that would be a good size for my balsa, i think my balsa is 4” wide and i got about 5 pieces 36” long so i wanna use the whole 4 inch wide balsa pieces.. im gonna start with 16 long seems like since i have the length and width i should use it all?
 
Do those balsa strops. I think you'll love them.

My strops are made from Bud Nosen 2x3x36 balsa planks with no backer. Light but stiff, no warping. The 2" depth keeps my fingertips well out of the way. I started with 12" strop lengths, but once I made a set at 16" and 18" the 12" went into reserve. The Bud Nosen stuff went way up in price during the pandemic. I found mine at a model train store.

Tap Plastic had great deals for me on 3/4" thick scrap material custom cut to my dimensions (for lapping film). They don't put the thicker scrap out on the floor, so you have to ask. Great customer service at my local Tap here in
Are these diamond pastes good for the balsa strops?
 

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Those are exactly my pastes. I bought a high concentration paste too. The diamonds are the point, not the filler. I dilute the paste with acetone (aka generic nail polish remover) to a watery thin slurry and then spread that evenly across the whole surface, rubbing it in with light fingertip pressure.

Start with less than a pea of paste for an entire 4x16, you can always add more. You don't want a layer of diamonds. It's not trying to be a DMT plate. Even when you can't see or feel the diamonds, you will notice the strop darkening as the diamonds polish off steel.

4" width won't hurt. Generally I can do either straight or X laps on my 3". I typically flip my strop end for end halfway through stropping, so that the full width gets used and any wear is evened out.

You have a lot of linear inches of balsa. I use just the three strops: 50k/.5u 100k/.25u 200k/.1u

The 200k is the daily work horse. For every shave I use it first, before linen then leather. With a couple dozen laps on the balsa, I don't seem to need very many laps on the hanging strops, maybe half a dozen on linen and a dozen on so on leather.
 
Those are exactly my pastes. I bought a high concentration paste too. The diamonds are the point, not the filler. I dilute the paste with acetone (aka generic nail polish remover) to a watery thin slurry and then spread that evenly across the whole surface, rubbing it in with light fingertip pressure.

Start with less than a pea of paste for an entire 4x16, you can always add more. You don't want a layer of diamonds. It's not trying to be a DMT plate. Even when you can't see or feel the diamonds, you will notice the strop darkening as the diamonds polish off steel.

4" width won't hurt. Generally I can do either straight or X laps on my 3". I typically flip my strop end for end halfway through stropping, so that the full width gets used and any wear is evened out.

You have a lot of linear inches of balsa. I use just the three strops: 50k/.5u 100k/.25u 200k/.1u

The 200k is the daily work horse. For every shave I use it first, before linen then leather. With a couple dozen laps on the balsa, I don't seem to need very many laps on the hanging strops, maybe half a dozen on linen and a dozen on so on leather.
Thank you, very informative and helpful. Turns out my balsa is 1/4”x3x36 and i have 5 boards of it so i think im gonna start off with 3x 12” strops to get my building and diamond pasting technique down before i try my 16-18” balsa strops. Ill use just balsa on the 12” no substrate and see how they perform make sure they arent gonna warp before i make those 16-18” balsa planks.

Thanks for the push, ive been wanting to make these balsa strops forever i just hadnt been confident enough nor had the substrate to fit it but now im gonna forgo it and just try the 12” see how they perform. As for cross contamination of diamond paste i can use the finer d paste strop to the courser diamond paste but not the course diamond paste then to the finer correct? Of course ill wipe down the SR between each with some acetone or nail polish remover to clean the paste off before moving grits. Does this sound right? Also how often would you need to re paste with D paste? Do you use a DMT to flatten the strop often then re paste?

Thank you!
LooneyToons
 
Absolutely right, whatever I'm doing to prepare/maintain the strop I go from finer to coarser diamonds. Re-lapping, pasting, whatever.

When stropping a razor I go from coarser to finer, of course, just as with hones or films. I don't clean my razor between balsa strops. If you don't over-paste the surfaces you should not be transferring very many diamonds. After balsa, I do rinse (hot tap water) and use a towel to strop/dry my razor spine and edge before going to the linen/leather.

I have a DMT Dia-Flat 95 plate and an old Atoma 400, but I only use them for my water stones. I lap my balsa flat using wet/dry sandpaper on a 12" square stone tile from a big box hardware store. Both for initial lapping and re-lapping. For initial lapping I go from fine to finer in the grits. Off the top of my head, I use 400 then something like 600 or 800. If the balsa has a big problem I might use something coarser than 400, but balsa tears up pretty easily, so be careful. If you use your DMT, that should be pretty gentle with balsa.

I have never re-lapped because I detected the strop losing its effect. Instead, I do it when the surface is pretty dark from micro-swarf. By that time I can usually detect a slight loss of flatness in the re-lapping process. The balsa has some give and presents a lot of surface, so small deviations from 'perfect' flatness are not an issue.

I only re-paste after re-lapping. I would say that I get around to re-lapping my 200k daily strop somewhere in the 12 to 18 month time frame. I have re-lapped my original 50k and 100k 12" strops once. The 18" set I use now have yet to be re-lapped. So the interval is greater than 2 years and is yet to be determined.

If I did not due a fair amount of restoration honing of vintage store SRs, the re-lapping/re-pasting interval for the coarser hones would probably be based on my detecting some warping. I use the coarser hones regularly when first establishing an edge on an SR. Then they do not get used again unless the edge seriously degrades. Different SRs hold their edges with varying tenacities. My problem children might visit the coarser diamonds before every shave. My best SRs have never revisited anything but 200k.

You might want to use 12" lengths of 2x4 as a substrate for your practice 12" strops. Sand the substrate roughly flat, glue on the balsa, then really flatten the balsa.

I hope I'm not nattering on too much! Enjoy your balsa build. Remember, restarting from scratch is pretty cheap and easy. A little sanding/lapping and re-pasting isn't hard. You have a lifetime supply of diamonds.
 
Absolutely right, whatever I'm doing to prepare/maintain the strop I go from finer to coarser diamonds. Re-lapping, pasting, whatever.

When stropping a razor I go from coarser to finer, of course, just as with hones or films. I don't clean my razor between balsa strops. If you don't over-paste the surfaces you should not be transferring very many diamonds. After balsa, I do rinse (hot tap water) and use a towel to strop/dry my razor spine and edge before going to the linen/leather.

I have a DMT Dia-Flat 95 plate and an old Atoma 400, but I only use them for my water stones. I lap my balsa flat using wet/dry sandpaper on a 12" square stone tile from a big box hardware store. Both for initial lapping and re-lapping. For initial lapping I go from fine to finer in the grits. Off the top of my head, I use 400 then something like 600 or 800. If the balsa has a big problem I might use something coarser than 400, but balsa tears up pretty easily, so be careful. If you use your DMT, that should be pretty gentle with balsa.

I have never re-lapped because I detected the strop losing its effect. Instead, I do it when the surface is pretty dark from micro-swarf. By that time I can usually detect a slight loss of flatness in the re-lapping process. The balsa has some give and presents a lot of surface, so small deviations from 'perfect' flatness are not an issue.

I only re-paste after re-lapping. I would say that I get around to re-lapping my 200k daily strop somewhere in the 12 to 18 month time frame. I have re-lapped my original 50k and 100k 12" strops once. The 18" set I use now have yet to be re-lapped. So the interval is greater than 2 years and is yet to be determined.

If I did not due a fair amount of restoration honing of vintage store SRs, the re-lapping/re-pasting interval for the coarser hones would probably be based on my detecting some warping. I use the coarser hones regularly when first establishing an edge on an SR. Then they do not get used again unless the edge seriously degrades. Different SRs hold their edges with varying tenacities. My problem children might visit the coarser diamonds before every shave. My best SRs have never revisited anything but 200k.

You might want to use 12" lengths of 2x4 as a substrate for your practice 12" strops. Sand the substrate roughly flat, glue on the balsa, then really flatten the balsa.

I hope I'm not nattering on too much! Enjoy your balsa build. Remember, restarting from scratch is pretty cheap and easy. A little sanding/lapping and re-pasting isn't hard. You have a lifetime supply of diamonds.
The more information you give me drives me to NEED to do it myself! Thank you for everything youve shared it really will help me in the long run. I cant wait to try this out and tell you all about my success or failure lol. Good thing i bought 5x 3x36 balsa planks cause i know ill mess atleast 1 up with too much paste or too much enthusiasm or maybe even too much pressure that ill curl my edge or some amateur mistakes. Ill learn to do it like a pro and get that hanging hair sharpness!

Thanks brother !
-Looneytoons
 

Slash McCoy

I freehand dog rockets
I have a naniwa 12 or 15 cant remember as my finishing stone to touchup an edge but im still not confident to do it on my nice vintage razors!
You probably have a Naniwa 12k SuperStone. It's a good finisher. Keep it nicely lapped and it will give you very consistent results. It is not a tricky, cantankerous type stone at all, IMHO. I have one and like it almost as much as I like my 1-1/2" thick acrylic plate from TAP Plastics, and 1µ 3M lapping film. TAP Plastics is my source. Don't let sticker shock keep you away from thick stock. Remember it cannot wear out or break, probably will never warp, and has about zero flex, and comes nice and flat. Chamfer the edges with approx .01 radius more or less, just in case there are any artifacts from the generally top notch cuts, and you have a forever plate for your lapping film.

The same stuff works great under 1/4" balsa. I like it because it never swells or warps like wood does. And yeah the balsa does that, BUT at only 1/4" thick, swelling is trivial and the glued base prevents warp. I always lap my balsa as carefully as I lap my stones, on wet/dry lightly glued to a bigger acrylic plate or my big granite surface plate. The sink cutout from a granite countertop works great for lapping your balsa and your stones, too. Good quality plate glass that is very thick will work. NOT float glass. Not flat enough at least for me.

Yes, the TechDiamondTools paste is very good, pretty much the standard paste in the community, though honestly I get great results from the cheap charlie Chinese stuff, too.

My advice is buy a shave ready vintage razor from a member. Nothing fancy, just a basic razor. Shave with it until the edge no longer shaves as well as when you got it. Then try your hand at refreshing the edge of this more expendable razor. But honestly with a good finisher unless you just go and go and go for hundreds and hundreds of laps, you are unlikely to cause any damage that can't easily be fixed. Still, yeah I feel your concern, so try to pick up something decent and shave ready in the $20 to $50 range for your sacrificial goat. You can't go wrong with an American vintage like a Genco or maybe a Union Spike, and they sometimes go for chimp change because they made so darn many of them.
 

Eben Stone

Staff member
I dilute the paste with acetone (aka generic nail polish remover) to a watery thin slurry and then spread that evenly across the whole surface, rubbing it in with light fingertip pressure.
Thanks. I'll be trying this tonight. I have the 25% "medium concentration" of all three grits, but for some reason the 200k has dried up like a crayon.
 
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