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RazorRenew strop for SE blades?

Gents:
I picked up a RazorRenew strop over the weekend (www.razorrenew.com if you are not familiar with it). I stropped a nearly new (1 or 2 shaves) Gem Stainless on it, per the instructions, and went to shave with it this in my Damaskeene this morning. It was terrible--clearly, I did something wrong and took the edge right off the blade. Any thoughts? Mind you, I've never stropped using an actual strop before, but I have palm-stropped my SE blades with success.
 

Old Hippie

Somewhere between 61 and dead
I picked up a RazorRenew strop over the weekend (www.razorrenew.com if you are not familiar with it). I stropped a nearly new (1 or 2 shaves) Gem Stainless on it, per the instructions, and went to shave with it this in my Damaskeene this morning. It was terrible--clearly, I did something wrong and took the edge right off the blade. Any thoughts? Mind you, I've never stropped using an actual strop before, but I have palm-stropped my SE blades with success.

I'd say by looking at their videos that having slack in the strop is going to "roll" the wire edge rather than "straighten" it. If it can be held tight on a flat surface, like a counter top, it might work better.

Conventional wisdom is that stainless blades don't benefit from stropping. It's a bit of YMMV, but some grades of stainless are harder to sharpen/hone/strop than carbon steels. In the knife world, one often finds the notation, "Holds an edge longer than carbon, but is harder to sharpen."

If you've rolled the edge -- think about a "J" shape -- then one side's going to be like a scraper (what woodworkers call a "burnished" edge) or the end of the "J" and the other side's going to be the rounded part of the "J." I kinda think you didn't roll the edge but probably just curved the strop around the edge enough to round the edge off, because of stainless' greater tenacity in that regard.

O.H.
 
Update: tried it on a carbon steel blade and wrecked the edge on that one too. Further experimentation is needed!
 

Old Hippie

Somewhere between 61 and dead
In some dark corner of the site archives there's a vintage Gem advertisment. It mentions each Gem blade is "...stropped 4,840 strokes" before being packaged.

My father used to run a laboratory preparing tissue samples for microscopic analysis. He had several microtomes, machines that use a ferociously sharp blade to make slices just a few molecules thick. If you've ever tried to accurately cut up raw meat you know that it squiggles. :001_smile I mention this because many of the "medical" Gem blades we can get are intended to be used as replaceable microtome blades. Dad's were more like wedge blades for razors; intended to be resharpened.

His technique was to use a stone of about 20,000 grit moistened with "tincture of green soap" (which is a specific thing in chemical parlance). He could get an edge that wasn't just polished, it was "optically flat" to a significant degree when checked for imperfections with a collimated light source. Point is, I watched him do that for YEARS and he never stropped a single one. First thing every day he spent an hour honing all the blades with an almost obsessively Buddhist level of patience and focus.

I'm actually on the same hunt you are. I suspect there's a way to resharpen a carbon steel blade. It may, however, be more trouble than a $0.50 blade is worth if all you're looking for is a sharp edge. Knowing how is an interesting endeavour, though, so don't let anyone talk you out of making the effort.

Cheers,

O.H.
 
Hi, O.H.:

Thanks for the info. I hadn't even heard of a microtome and didn't know such a thing existed (but I should have figured as much; I remember squinting through a microscope in high school biology) but that makes sense--and wow, those must be some ferociously sharp blades!

I'm not sure what my next step is. I may try to acquire a wedge blade (Rolls Razor, maybe) and see if I can work my way up from there. As you say, it's about the journey, not the destination.

And my apologies for not responding sooner--I was down with the flu for awhile, just getting caught up again.

--Tom
 

Old Hippie

Somewhere between 61 and dead
I'm not sure what my next step is. I may try to acquire a wedge blade (Rolls Razor, maybe) and see if I can work my way up from there. As you say, it's about the journey, not the destination.

And my apologies for not responding sooner--I was down with the flu for awhile, just getting caught up again.

Not to worry, Tom. Glad to hear you're surviving the flu!

I'm in a part of Canada where we have a couple of local sources for interesting DE blades and one barber supply that can do some SE stuff but nobody has Gem of any kind, nor Schick for that matter. Most drug stores have Wilkinson Sword DE blades and that's it except for the latest 35-blade injection-molded wonder.

I'll be on a road trip in a few months and will probably spend a bit of time building a stash of blades to fit all the interesting razors I want to try over the next year or so. I'll be looking for some Pal/Treet/Gem carbon blades among others. Our brother Lord Fatboy has kindly sent me a couple of vintage carbon blades to play with in the mean time.

Cheers,

Chuck ("Old Hippie")
 
Chuck:
I’m in the same boat here in New Hampshire, but I’ve found that Amazon is a boon to those of us who live in rural areas. Are their postage rates too steep to make it worthwhile to ship to you there?
—Tom
 
Hi, O.H.:

Thanks for the info. I hadn't even heard of a microtome and didn't know such a thing existed (but I should have figured as much; I remember squinting through a microscope in high school biology) but that makes sense--and wow, those must be some ferociously sharp blades!

I'm not sure what my next step is. I may try to acquire a wedge blade (Rolls Razor, maybe) and see if I can work my way up from there. As you say, it's about the journey, not the destination.

And my apologies for not responding sooner--I was down with the flu for awhile, just getting caught up again.

--Tom
Not mine from SRP, but I have a Torrey microtome that I use occassionally.
"Kamisaurus Rex" or The Death of a Microtome
Different feel, but very efficient!
 

Old Hippie

Somewhere between 61 and dead
Chuck:
I’m in the same boat here in New Hampshire, but I’ve found that Amazon is a boon to those of us who live in rural areas. Are their postage rates too steep to make it worthwhile to ship to you there?
—Tom

I get problems shipping things. Because most online sellers understand that people would actually like to get the item in their hands before they put their cards back in their wallets they use courier services (UPS, Purolator, etc.). While I'm not opposed to such things, I find with UPS in particular that it can turn into being way more hassle than I like.

Case in point: a recent purchase of some parts to repair a kitchen appliance. The parts cost me $35. Shipping via UPS, since it was within Canada, was only $17.50. UPS received the package, but claimed there was an "emergency" that prevented their driver from getting to my house to deliver it. Funny, I drive that road twice a day and had no problems... So they then sent me a postcard (!) telling me that they would return the item if I didn't contact them by a specific date. It was on the evening of that date that I pulled the postcard out of the mailbox with the rest of that day's mail. That was my first contact from them.

That turned into a series of evening phone calls with UPS, during which they attempted to contact their local office and get someone to go out and unload the box from their truck. Finally some poor schlub found the box, put it aside, and the UPS central told me I could pick it up the next day. When I asked about it at the depot, they said, "Oh, we didn't have your phone number." So I turned the box so the top faced the UPS worker, and pointed to the clear envelope on the top of the box that displayed the invoice from the company, which clearly had my phone number on it. They had the grace to apologize.

Surreal as it sounds, that's actually a very GOOD experience with UPS. I often get quoted shipping rates that at the cheapest are at least twice the value of the item being shipped. I have also been hit by UPS with a charge ranging from between $50 and $200 seemingly at random just to bring a small box across a national border. Far too many US shippers use UPS and are actually (so they tell me) prohibited from using other services or USPS.

Since I occasionally find myself in the US, I habitually spend a bit of time "foraging" for items that I want or need, and take them home with me. Saves me a lot of aggravation, I get what I want without having to bribe UPS for it, and I can eat the "cost of shipping" because I was there on other business anyway. I can bring $800 worth of stuff across with no duty, where UPS has tried to extort three and four times the value of an item costing far less.

That's the system; I get it; just trying to get 'er done.

Cheers,

O.H.
 
Chuck:
Let’s take a theoretical: if there were shaving supplies that you couldn’t obtain where you are, but those supplies could be shipped to someplace (like New Hampshire) at a reasonable cost, then forwarded to Canada by a private citizen who wasn’t bound to use a private courier, would that work?
Speaking theoretically, of course. :)
—Tom
 

Ron R

I survived a lathey foreman
Gents:
I picked up a RazorRenew strop over the weekend (www.razorrenew.com if you are not familiar with it). I stropped a nearly new (1 or 2 shaves) Gem Stainless on it, per the instructions, and went to shave with it this in my Damaskeene this morning. It was terrible--clearly, I did something wrong and took the edge right off the blade. Any thoughts? Mind you, I've never stropped using an actual strop before, but I have palm-stropped my SE blades with success.
I never had much luck stropping DE blades with denim or leather but had more luck with a straight glass small Diameter drinking glass. Cartridge blades I use denim and had reasonable success and was able to get extra shaves.
I had some fun with experimenting last year(2018) with a antique glass sharpener and in those days(Dirty 30,s) DE blades were carbon steel and you could more than likely straighten curled edges on a blade and get a few more shaves. The shave quality drops off on stainless steel I found and if you like to read some interesting feedback from others & myself here's the thread.
Shaving Oddities!
 

Ron R

I survived a lathey foreman
Gents:
I picked up a RazorRenew strop over the weekend (www.razorrenew.com if you are not familiar with it). I stropped a nearly new (1 or 2 shaves) Gem Stainless on it, per the instructions, and went to shave with it this in my Damaskeene this morning. It was terrible--clearly, I did something wrong and took the edge right off the blade. Any thoughts? Mind you, I've never stropped using an actual strop before, but I have palm-stropped my SE blades with success.
One more thing I should of mentioned, on the SE Gem blades the blade keepers seem to bend and damage that part of the blade and when stropping with leather it seems to gouge the leather and make a mess of the strop over time!
 

Old Hippie

Somewhere between 61 and dead
Chuck:
Let’s take a theoretical..Speaking theoretically, of course. :)
—Tom

Hi Tom,

Yes, that works. And it's a gag I've pulled many times. I've got one hardware supplier who only deals with businesses in Canada, but in the US anyone can buy -- so I created "Bone, Branch & Blade Custom Shaving Tools" and problem solved. Another one of those companies has a hyphenated name, but the reality is one name in Canada, another in the US. Although they're the "same company" they can't sell one side's products on the other side (even when it's the same product), so I have a "Production Manager" in the US who insures I get what I need.

The sin, if any, is venial. Most things run more smoothly in our human universe when we find ways to work around what someone thought the rules should be. That is, unless the rules WORK, in which case following them is the best course. I'll stop that line of thought before the mods move this to the "Moral Relativism" subforum...

O.H.
 
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