Flintstone65
Imagining solutions for imaginary problems
To answer your question, yes and no. I think I made a classic rookie mistake in buying balsa wood from Amazon, which had great length, great width, but teeny-tiny thickness -- I remember you mentioning that you had found some thicker stock, and that's a very good thing. So I did my best to flatten the thin balsa piece using a flat stone with sand paper, and that was fine, except the lack of thickness means the balsa wants to just naturally bow (which is not fine). So I concocted a weight that sits on the balsa when it's not in use...an iron that sits on a flat board, which sits on the balsa, which sits on a flat piece of granite. All of that is adjacent to my shaving area, and the LOTH just rolls her eyes as she walks by it. I only created one balsa strop initially (the one with the finest diamond paste), and I'm glad I did, because I need to go out and get better (i.e., thicker) pieces of either balsa or basswood which I can then use as better strops. I also used the vendor you had mentioned and purchased more diamond paste as well.
So I've got my thin piece of balsa with the ultra-fine paste, and I use it as we discussed after every shave, along with some leather stropping and a little bit of linen stropping. What concerns me about the balsa strop is that one side of the blade makes a different sound than the other side when stropping. I'm not sure if it's my technique or an artifact of the strop. I do rotate the balsa board around in the middle of the session to make sure the strop is "worn" evenly, but one direction (the same direction regardless of the orientation of the wood) makes a sound and produces a "feel" like the whole blade is touching, and the other direction sounds and feels like it's mostly the spine touching.
It's all slowly coming together, but I really need to locate and acquire stropping wood (balsa, or I guess basswood would work), and then I think I'll be in better shape. It may also be time for me to start using the lower grits periodically, and that may "touch-up" and elevate the sharpness on the razor.
) and Omega cream / cherry Semogue Owners Club boar
