Stropping carbon steel blades?

[Kevan]

A friend of mine was ecstatic about a shave that he enjoyed last week using some Treet Blue Specials (the Treet "Kala" black carbon blades) that I gave to him ages ago. He's just getting around to them and he loves them to death. Now, I originally gave them to him because when I tried them, they felt like broken glass scraping across my skin. I got curious about them again and got a few in a recent order and tonight I loaded one into a 40's Superspeed. When I originally tried them about 2 years ago, I used them in a Muhle/EJ razor. This time, I decided that a better test would be to use them in a razor designed before stainless blades even existed.

Well, the first few strokes weren't as rough as I remembered it, but it was still rougher than I liked. When I got to the thicker hair on my jawline and neck, things got tougher. And I said to myself, "They wouldn't use these things in Pakistani and Indian barber saloons if they didn't work. And I refuse to believe that shaving with carbon blades in the 50's was this unpleasant."

I remembered reading somewhere that people said you could strop these, either on your hand or a glass or something. And back when I first joined B&B, talk of "corking" supersharp blades like Feathers was commonplace. What could it hurt to give it a shot? So I stopped, took the blade out, dried it as best I could, and stropped it on my left hand. Five times each edge, and then another two times for good measure. I had never stropped a blade before and didn't even know if I was doing it right. When I put it back in the razor, it was literally NIGHT AND DAY. The damn thing was so smooth it was like a blade wasn't even there. And the resulting 2.5 pass shave was phenomenal and absolutely irritation-free. I was stunned. Yeah, I'm sure the AOS Sandalwood soap did its usual thing. but this shave was truly effortless. Three days of stubble gone with nary a pull after the stropping.

So now my question is, what's the best way to strop carbon blades? Against a strip of canvas or linen? How many times do you do it? I don't think this trick will work with coated carbon steel. The Treet Dura Sharps are so smooth they don't need it and the Classics (which have reportedly replaced the now-discontinued Blue Specials) are coated too, I think. So I'm pretty sure I only need to do this with my stash of remaining Treet "Kala".

 

[gnoils]

I always palm strop my blades after I shaved. Not really sure if it makes them smoother, though I did notice some improvements in longevity.

 

[Kevan]

I'm thinking that since these blades are carbon (like straight razors) and don't have a coated edge for smoothness, that stropping them improves the edge like it does with a straight. Might help with longevity too, but I don't know.

 

[gnoils]

I have heard that the coatings on de blades a very thin, so thin that once used to shave most of the coatings will be scraped off.

I think palm stropping helps to keep the edge aligned so that it last longer. I doubt it does anything with smoothness though since it's such a short strop. Using an actual strop might be beneficial, but I think it will be very hard to strop the de blades correctly due to the dimensions.

 

[man00ver]

Kevan, why mess with success? Palm-strop your next one while it's new and see what happens with the first shave. Most blades don't require it, but I've had similarly great results when palm-stropping Astra SP and Walmart Wilkinson blades, 4-5 strokes per bevel on the edge of my dry palm, prior to first use only. I'd always assumed it was smoothing out the coating a bit, but in your case it may be slightly polishing the edge... and maybe that's all that's needed.