New Improved 21st Century Rolls Razor!!

[mjclark]

After a discussion in another thread about pasting the case strop, and a bit of experimentation, here's the 21st century fully portable Rolls Razor.
Hone is overlaid with 1u lapping film on petroleum jelly (excuse the air bubbles in the photo, they're gone in the finished version).
Strop is pasted with ferric oxide.

The blade was made shave ready on a slate and crox progression outside the case and now it will be fully maintainable using only the case equipment, as the original design intended.

I'm waiting for the acrylic to cure on a chromium oxide coated case strop too to see what happens substituting that for the ferric oxide too.

 

[StuMcB]

Mr Clark, once again you seem to find another vintage razor and go with it. I'll be honest but razor sharpening to me is a magical blend of paste and witch craft (DE blades for this boy, occassional Feather SE in my cobra). But I like the look of what you got there. How does the Rolls shave?

 

[mjclark]

Thanks Stu! These "transition razors", the Rolls and the Durham Duplex, give such great shaves when the blades are sharp enough and combine all the best elements of straights and safeties.
The big problem is the maintenance. In the DD it's actually more work than a straight but the results are phenomenal.

The lapping film/ferric oxide upgrade on the Rolls does mean that for the first time the system works as it was intended to, and you have the complete maintenance set up in a very easy to use format, all contained in the case.
The only problem now is that the mechanism is so loud,but the shave is absolutely gorgeous with all the manouverability and speed of a safety combined with the mellowness and comfort of a straight.
If you can get a shave ready Rolls, try it and see

 

[mulligano]

That's a very cool idea - looking forward to hearing how well it works. I've got a couple of these and, if this works well, might look into trying it myself.

How awkward was it to prepare the blade "outside of the case" beforehand? The size/shape doesn't seem to lend itself to honing without the full mechanism.

 

[mjclark]

The blade has a chunky spine and it's quite easy to hone it laying flat on a hone.
For the lighter strokes, you can just nudge it along!
And it's very important to set the bevel, cos the angle inside the case is different from when it's flat on the external hones.

 

[mjclark]

And here's an alternative prototype - still 1u lapping film overlaid on the hone, but now chromium oxide acrylic on the strop.

Not sure whether ferric oxide or chromium oxide is going to work better on the strop.
There's only one way to find out...

 

[gdgeorge]

This is a neat idea. This evening I took a really dull Rolls blade and played around with it a bit with some results that make me think I'm on the right track. What I did was take a broken stone out and replace it with a strop over which I had placed a piece of 5um lapping film. I returned that to the case and used the Rolls mechanism to run the blade across it for a bit. I then did the same thing with 3um and 1um film. I then took it upstairs, stropped it on my "good" (but not shave-ready yet) Rolls, and gave it a try. The results were not spectcular, but the blade was a good deal sharper than when I started...

So what I'm going to do is actually go through and attach the three grades of lapping film in such a manner that they can be switched out. Then I'm going to spend some time working on a blade and see what I can do.

Questions:

Should I wet the film, do you suppose?

Should I continue to use the hone side and hone against the edge or should I try the strop side and go with the edge?

Should I dress the strop with something besides Fromms?

Cheers,
Jerry

 

[mjclark]

Great stuff! Glad you're getting an improvement in the blade.
I've used a trace of petroleum jelly on my film to avoid getting any water in the case, and am using sharpening pastes on the strop.

And yes I'm honing on the film and then stropping on the pasted strop.
I suspect that the chromium oxide is going to be too aggressive for frequent use and the finer ferric oxide will do better.

I like your idea of having a progression of films used in the case.

I think the key to all this is to get the bevel set to begin with, and then the case hone and strop can really get the blade sharp and smooth.
I just went to work on the bevel with a coarse synthetic stone at the start of the progression, and the end result was a very sharp blade and a truly excellent shave

 

[gdgeorge]

Two days into the newly honed and stropped RR blade and it's better each day. As above, I originally use 5, 3, and then 1 um lapping film over anold strop and then the strop, which had been treated with Fromms. On Saturday, I cut down a piece of luan (which is what I had inthe right thickness) and kind of sandwiched the lapping film into the Rolls. I ran it through 5 and 3 um this time and then used a strop with some green buffing compound. Yesterday's shave was Ok and this morning`s was better. Either was better than a SAS, but there was improvement beteeen fthe two due to more time honing.

Where I am now is that tonight I put the 5um lapping media directly over the hone and ran it (dry) for a bit. I then stropped the razor, again with the built in strop but this time impregnated with Tormek stropping compound.

Looking forward to trying it again tomorrow...

 

[mjclark]

Brilliant! It is my experience with the ferric oxide pasted strop that the blade has got sharper and smoother each shave too.

Imagine a razor where the shave improves every time you use it!

Please keep us posted with your progress.

 

[gdgeorge]

I managed to go backwards with the thing last night... Not sure whether it was the Tormek compound or the 5um lapping film but I gave up after two passes this morning and fnished with my New OC. The passes were rough and irritating and the blade just felt dull. Even after I layed with the angle.

What I did this evening is ran the blade through the full progression (5, 3, and 1um film) on the actual hone. Then I stropped using the Tormek cream strop and then the plain leather / buffing compound strop. We'll see what happens but this setback is disheartening.

If this doesn't work, I'm going back to the lapping film on the Luan.

Cheers,
J

 

[mjclark]

I managed to go backwards with the thing last night... Not sure whether it was the Tormek compound or the 5um lapping film but I gave up after two passes this morning and fnished with my New OC. The passes were rough and irritating and the blade just felt dull. Even after I layed with the angle.

What I did this evening is ran the blade through the full progression (5, 3, and 1um film) on the actual hone. Then I stropped using the Tormek cream strop and then the plain leather / buffing compound strop. We'll see what happens but this setback is disheartening.

If this doesn't work, I'm going back to the lapping film on the Luan.

Cheers,
J

Don't be discouraged! 5u and then Tormek ( which I think is 3u) is probably a bit coarse for the finished blade, and you've brought the edge back from the 1u when it was working.

We are 21st century Rolls pioneers here, and finding this stuff out is useful in itself.

 

[BSAGuy]

Marcus - As expected, very interesting and creative post. Thanks for sharing your expertise and craftsmanship.

 

[gdgeorge]

Don't be discouraged! 5u and then Tormek ( which I think is 3u) is probably a bit coarse for the finished blade, and you've brought the edge back from the 1u when it was working.

We are 21st century Rolls pioneers here, and finding this stuff out is useful in itself.

You're right about the Tormek. It's 1-3u and really designed for a power strop. I took the thing through the 5-3-1u progression on the internal hone again, and then the leather strop and it was much better this morning.

What I've done now is ordered some CrOx paste. Once that comes in, I'll probably go ahead and paste on of my extra strops. In the meantime, I think I'll stop the thing on leather with the "green buffing crayon" as that seemed to provide the best shave so far.

This is fun. It makes me happy because I think the Rolls is very cool. If it works, not only will I be able to keep it in my rotation, I'll probably be able to get one or two of my spares ready to shave. (More if I can find a source for blade holder springs.)

Cheers,
J

 

[mjclark]

Cool! I'm pretty sure that the way to go is 1u film hone + pasted strop.
I want to do a "shave off" between chromium oxide and ferric oxide for the stropping paste, so maybe we can compare notes

 

[gdgeorge]

Cool! I'm pretty sure that the way to go is 1u film hone + pasted strop.
I want to do a "shave off" between chromium oxide and ferric oxide for the stropping paste, so maybe we can compare notes

Sounds good. They (Superior Shave) shipped my paste this afternoon so I'll probably have it Friday or Saturday. In the meantime, I think I'm going to go ahead and work up another blade.

Cheers,
J

 

[KeenEdger]

Good stuff!

I will be standing by to see what you guys figure out.

I was just going over old threads this morning; trying to find out what paste to order for my Rolls strop, and my Valet strop.

Any suggestions would be great.

I would just like to keep the cost of the paste at a lower price then I paid for the razors... combined!

 

[mjclark]

I use a lapped coat of chromium oxide green acrylic paint for the crox, and ferric oxide stropping powder (cheap off ebay) mixed with baby oil.

Nice idea to paste the Valet strop. I'm thinking of doing the same for my Wilkinson Sword Empire.
I

 

[gdgeorge]

Why paste the valet strop? Unless you're using NOS blades... I was under the impression that the newer blades, unless you've found carbon steel SE blades, wouldn't benefit from stropping.

 

[gdgeorge]

But while we're on the subject... I just got a NOS Valet outfit... Do you suppose that some Fromm`s on the strop will get it usable?