Pasted strop impact measurement challenge!

[albsat]

Calling all expert...

I was thinking about pasted strop impact on a razor.

Using a pasted strop (Crox in my case) every 2 or 3 days for 10 or 15 laps you get a refreshed edge. So for a month it needs as minimum 100 laps to refresh through a pasted strop. For a year it needs 1200 laps minimum. I don't have any stone and I am not able to do calculations based on my experience.

My question to all experts members here...

Can someone do 1200 laps on a shave ready razor and find out what happens to the razor? And then try to hone the razor again with stones and write what was required to make the razor shave ready? Like the razor needed to be honed from 1000 grit or 3000 grit or no stone honing at all required...

I think it will be very interesting for some to find out what 1200 laps on a pasted strop would bring to a razor from different member experience...

 

[jj_sharp]

I think you should try it and report back

 

[Darth Scandalous]

Paging @H Brad Boonshaft
I think he and some other guys did a long test of chrome ox only maintenance a few years ago on another forum. Hopefully he'll see this and tell about how it went.

 

[albsat]

Paging @H Brad Boonshaft
I think he and some other guys did a long test of chrome ox only maintenance a few years ago on another forum. Hopefully he'll see this and tell about how it went.

@H Brad Boonshaft is so experienced that probably would maintain a sharp razor with a pasted strop for many years.

 

[albsat]

I think you should try it and report back

As I wrote I don't have any stone for the current moment. I will try this one day.

 

[LJS]

Not all steels and razors are the same. And some folks like crox and some hate it. There is no surprise that there is some rounding of an edge and also no surprise that can take a little more stone work to hone out flat. You just need to try and see if it works for you. I don’t use pasted or treated strops for much but years ago I finished on a few laps of crox and it was always sharp as hell and a good shave for me. I still use crox stropping blocks to finish tool edges to mirror finish.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Paste and even linen and leather can keep you shaving for a long time. Different leathers and finishes, and linens and linen weaves can make a stropping progression. Adding paste the combinations are endless.

The problem is that there are other factors that impact edge life, like improper stropping technique, contaminated strops, (airborne dust is contantly landing on hanging strops and much larger than any paste), and if a razor’s edge is not properly cleaned post shaving, water, soap, skin and blood begin to rust the micron thin edge immediately after shaving. All metal will flash rust, the thinner the more it will impact the steel.

Yes, any paste or plain linen and leather will convex a bevel, but by microns, not enough to stop a razor from shaving.

On my carving tools I strop them constantly on Chrome Oxide, Diamonds and CBN, on various leather and linen paddle strops. I only re-hone tools when there is edge damage. The trick is to not let the edge get so dull that paste will not bring it back easily.

Yes, you can strop on Chrome Oxide and other high grit paste daily and keep a razor shaving (indefinitely), if your skin can handle a pasted edge.

It is stropping that damages most edges. I see razor bevels with random deep scratches. Those razors touched someone’s face, beard, and their strops. Which contact do you think made the random scratches, yes a contaminated strop…

The other rub is you must master stropping, get to a point were each lap is improving the edge.

 

[Gamma]

I've had dedicated razors and knives in 'paste maintenance' testing for many years.
I don't really like Crox for razors so that stuff wasn't involved except in the early days.

First, there are many types of what people call chromox on the market and it doesn't all work the same way. A good bit of it is actually mostly Alox. And there are a bizillion types of Alox too.

Even with so called 'pure' Chromox, the PSD is always all over the place. Getting any abrasive in what I call 'industrial grade' proof of consistency is not always cheap or easy. The higher grade product performs better, unsurprisingly.

Anyway - I can't imagine ever needing to touch up an edge every 3 days. Maybe, just maybe, 1x a week.
Usually 3-5 passes across maybe 6-10 inches of 2 inch wide cotton substrate. Typically, every other week for my performance testing. sometimes I use a leather paddle strop as a substrate, or felt, or slicker leathers too. Depends.

Pressure, slack, and abrasive density on the substrate matter a lot. Too much of any can definitely turn a serviceable edge into a doggy blade. Yeah, paste used incorrectly can keep an cutting but it won't cut well or feel good. For knives and tools it's not so critical unless the user is verrrrry edge specific.

With using pastes, some of the issues can revolve around geometry, but the main part is fatigue at the apex due to wear and deformation mechanisms.. Combined it makes a less then desirable edge.
With a lack of control, or care, or attention, turning a 17° bevel into a, effectively, 40° bevel is pretty easy. It shaves but I'd rather use a Mach 3. Guys that strop like they're in a Loony Toons cartoon will cause this to happen. And it happens more often than you'd believe.

IN use, steel edges do not wear evenly across their entire length, and pastes can only do so much with certain levels of wear. Damage to the a razor's apex caused by normal shaving of whiskers is a known, documented, and predictable occurence; this is where the loss of cutting efficacy is caused, for the most part. My own processes show that I usually want to rehone an edge, zero it, after 12-18 months of paste maintenance. I can stretch it longer but I don't do this straight razor thing to see 'what I can get away with". Mostly I want to have a certain 'quality of shave' to look forward to. So it's a balance of honing and using. Honestly though, paste edges are really 'not my thing', I prefer edges off stones. The abrasives I've been testing over the years were employed for other reasons, projects, education, etc.

The good news is that zeroing out even the worst case scenario blade doesn't take much work if all the parts of the equation are in place.

I've actually done over 1k passes on certain abrasives. It usually makes a mess of things including extreme uneven bevel wear terminating in massive microchipping at the apex. Fixing it isn't all that difficult. I reset bevels on a 1k usually. m

I don't know that someone else with a different razor, different compound, different substrate, etc - would see the same things though. I also don't think one person doing 1000 passes all at once will see the same things as someone doing 1000 passes over the course of a year or two. I know for sure that doing 100 passes all at once creates wear that looks markedly different than doing that many passes on an in-use blade over the course of a year. Either way though, bevel reset is usually easy unless there is an excessive amount of chipping to contend with.

 

[BobYourUncle]

I think many straight users don’t see the point of the experiment. Why paste a razor 1200 times when it’s not needed. You’ll find out how long you can maintain your edge on paste and what the routine will do over time. I only use abrasives when I absolutely have to and prefer bare leather to maintain an edge as long as humanly possible.