Playing with pastes on a budget

[jrowen]

Hi, Gents.

As most newbs, my stropping skills are non-existant. I'm about 99.999% sure I dulled my blade on my first attempts at stropping, though I'm feeling much more confident with the motions and the "feel" now.

Long term, I fully intend on acquiring a "complete" stone honing setup (whatever that means for me when the time comes). ... probably one piece at a time! In the meantime, I'm considering playing with pastes as a means to "freshen" the edge (assuming I haven't totally screwed up the edge already). I am considering this for a couple of reasons: 1) it seems harder to screw up than honing 2) it seems like it can be done quickly 3) in general it appears to be less expensive. I say "playing with" pastes, because in part, for me, this is an exercise in finding out what I might like, and more importantly, what I don't like. ... and I fully realize this also has the potential to blow the edge... and that I'll need to get the blade honed by someone who knows what they're doing eventually anyway. So, this isn't a means to circumvent that, only an exercise for my interest in seeing what's possible without breaking the bank.

Rayman has a travel strop listed for $25 (I'm not sure if that includes shipping or not. It's a paddle or bench hone (if I used the term correctly) -style strop that uses magnetic-backed changable stropping surfaces. The paddle style seems like a good fit for the application, especially for a newb. Dimensions are 8" long by 1-1/2" wide by 1-1/2" high. 3 different stropping surfaces come with the set: balsa, hard wool, leather. For a "limited time", the set comes with enough CrOx to paste the balsa. I plan on buying some .5 micron diamond paste for the leather (can be had for as little as ~$10 from Ted Pella, any comments on the quality of this paste would be appreciated), and some .25 diamond spray for the wool (cheapest I can find it is ~$20-25 for 4oz, anywhere from 10-15 carat).

So... for ~$65, I can play with .5u diamond on leather, .25u diamond on wool, and CrOx on balsa. Seems like a good deal to me. Is this a bad idea?

If Rayman is willing to sell the leather stropping material independently from the set (waiting on a response), I'm thinking of adding 1u & 3u diamond on leather to my setup (3u supposedly approximating a Norton 8k?). I also might buy one so that I could acutally use this as a travel strop if I wanted! I don't know how much the leather would cost, but the additional diamond would run another $30 from Ted Pella. That would give 3,1,0.5u diamond on leather, 0.25 diamond on wool, and CrOx on balsa to play with.... that ought to keep me busy for a while.

Any other thoughts for pastes on a budget?

- Jason

 

[michiganlover]

Any other thoughts for pastes on a budget?

- Jason

Larry Andro (http://www.whippeddog.com) sells the "poor man's strop kit" for $11 that includes a piece of balsa wood pre-pasted with Ferrous Oxide, and Chromium Oxide (one type per side). It also includes enough extra paste to supposedly last for about a year. It's hard to beat $11.

I recently did a pretty good job of dulling my razor by stropping over a significant nick, and was able to repair all damage by doing 5-10 passes on a barber hone, followed by 100 passes on the Ferrous Oxide, and 150 passes on the Chromium Oxide. The edge is as good as new, and cutting wonderfully.

Larry also sells Barber's Hones for a very good price as well.

I am on a budget too, and I am hoping to get by with 1-2 pro honings per year.

 

[jtrops]

You may want to add a barber hone to your plan. In fact the barber hone should be enough to do everything you want for refreshing the edge. I still use ChrOx to polish my edge after the barber hone, but never more than 10-15 passes.

I shaved with a straight for 5+ years before I picked up more than a barber hone, and a strop.

I have used white rouge (+-3 micron) with good results. It's really cheap at the hardware store. You can load it into a balsa stop by heating the balsa with a heatgun prior to applying the rouge. It's pretty hard otherwise. The white rouge is fast cutting, and leaves a smooth edge.

 

[jrowen]

Thanks for the comments guys! Those are all good suggestions for a budget. $11 for Ferrous Oxide and CrOx is a pretty good deal, as well as rouge from the HW store.

WRT barbers hones, I agree that a barbers hone is cheap, functional and practical, but this thread wasn't really meant to discuss that. I mentioned I'll be exploring stones later. If I was going for bare minimum on a budget, I'd probably just get a barber hone or a C12K for $30-40-ish and a Rayman balsa w/ CrOx for $16. That's why the title was "playing with pastes", practicality not really being the issue (so long as it has enough function to accomplish the goal). The intent of the conversation being methods to experience a maximal variety of pastes on the widest variety of surfaces for the least amount of money. For example, for new product (without pastes), a 4-sided paddle strop is ~$70, a 2-sided paddle is ~$50, a wool hanger is ~$50, etc. Those costs add up quick. That's where I saw a "modular" type system being a way to get costs down and still be able to experience a lot. Maybe someone has some home brew methods, etc. I don't want to have the "newb looking for cheap touchup solution" discussion, as that one's been had many times, and I'm well aware of the answers.

Thanks,

- Jason

 

[jtrops]

I've tried pastes on 2" wide nylon webbing hanging strops, and I have made balsa strops from hardware store balsa contact cemented to melamine mdf. Both of these options are cheap so you could try a bunch of things without putting too much into the substrate.

The balsa mounted on a hard flat surface seems to prevent some of the bevel rounding that people talk about with pastes.

 

[honed]

The balsa mounted on a hard flat surface seems to prevent some of the bevel rounding that people talk about with pastes.

Yes it does.

 

[alexo]

What's the advantage in using pastes over lapping film?