I was at Lee Valley the other day speaking with their so called sharpening expert. He rationalized to me that stropping on a taut leather strop might do more damage than good. I can understand this if the person stropping in a newbie (kind of like myself). He continued to suggest that stropping on a piece of abrasive around 9000k would be better because you will never round off your blade edge like you can with a leather strop. He further suggested that getting a piece of 9k micro-abrasive on mylar film (0.5 microns, laced with CrOx) would serve me better than a strop. What do you all think? FYI, a piece of this 0.5 micron film only costs $2.20 for 8.5" x 11".
Stropping on 9000 grit paper instead of leather
- Thread starter rambus007
- Start date
I think I wouldn't follow his advise at all. Sharpening expert doesn't mean he can do the straight razor. You don't want to use an abrasive edge everyday. Improper stropping can ruin an edge as will improper honing which is basically what you'd be doing with the sandpaper. Proper leather stropping will align the edge and is what you should be doing.
I'd say he sounds like a person that hasn't got a clue on what he is talking about.
Abrasive stropping is for touch-ups.
Not daily edge alignment as leather is for.
And if I want abrasive stropping, sandpaper is just wrong. Some sort of paste CrOx, diamond et. al is the way to go.
Stropping on 9000-paper isn't very far from stropping on a Norton 8000. And that is just plain wrong.
Abrasive stropping is for touch-ups.
Not daily edge alignment as leather is for.
And if I want abrasive stropping, sandpaper is just wrong. Some sort of paste CrOx, diamond et. al is the way to go.
Stropping on 9000-paper isn't very far from stropping on a Norton 8000. And that is just plain wrong.
You know, he might be right... But, I wouldn't do it. If you did strop on an abrasive material like that, I certainly wouldn't do many laps before each shave. I hesitate to say it's wrong because I've never tried it. It just seems like a bad idea 
Centuries of experience (obviously not all mine
) leather stropping are good enough for me to trust that it's not a bad move 
Centuries of experience (obviously not all mine
) leather stropping are good enough for me to trust that it's not a bad move
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I think the guy believes he's a lot more of an expert than he really is. A razor should ALWAYS be stropped on leather after any abrasive of any grit is used on it. The leather burnishes the edge of the blade and that's important for both comfort and edge-holding.
The strop doesn't round off the edge, but it does round off the bevel a bit and that's a good thing, not a bad thing. From an engineering perspective, the slightly rounded bevel is much stronger than a 15 degree bevel that is not slightly burnished and rounded. The burnishing rubs and polishes away very tiny abnormalities that will inevitably be in the edge after honing. Removing them gently with stropping means they won't get snapped off while shaving, leaving microchips behind.
There is no ideal substitute for plain, unpasted leather strops for razors.
I agree with the comments by Robert Williams.
I have used the micro-abrasive sheeting mentioned, and even got it from Lee Valley. While it is true that it doesn't have the "give" that leather does, and it does produce a very sharp V shaped edge, that edge is harsh. Leather tames and smooths the edge. And, in my opinion, leather further sharpens the edge.
Besides, as mentioned or alluded to above, I believe the slight rounding produced by leather is one of the reasons why straights shave so comfortably.
(My theory is that the slightly rounded razor edge pushes down the skin on the hair shaft, exposing a micro-bit more of whisker than would be exposed without the slight weight of the razor. The hair is then cut. If the blade edge was completely V shaped, it wouldn't skim along on top of the skin, but dig into the skin. And, isn't this why blades are called harsh? It is probably not from their edges being jagged (which they might or might not be), but from the fact that they are shaving off too many of the layers of dead skin, leaving too little protective dead layers of skin on top of the actively growing skin layers.)
I have used the micro-abrasive sheeting mentioned, and even got it from Lee Valley. While it is true that it doesn't have the "give" that leather does, and it does produce a very sharp V shaped edge, that edge is harsh. Leather tames and smooths the edge. And, in my opinion, leather further sharpens the edge.
Besides, as mentioned or alluded to above, I believe the slight rounding produced by leather is one of the reasons why straights shave so comfortably.
(My theory is that the slightly rounded razor edge pushes down the skin on the hair shaft, exposing a micro-bit more of whisker than would be exposed without the slight weight of the razor. The hair is then cut. If the blade edge was completely V shaped, it wouldn't skim along on top of the skin, but dig into the skin. And, isn't this why blades are called harsh? It is probably not from their edges being jagged (which they might or might not be), but from the fact that they are shaving off too many of the layers of dead skin, leaving too little protective dead layers of skin on top of the actively growing skin layers.)
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