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To Strop or Not to Strop - With Pasted Balsa Maintenance?

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
A topic was mentioned in another thread on B&B last week about whether there is any benefit to be gained by stropping a SR if it is being maintained after each shave on a 0.1μm diamond pasted balsa strop. This week I am going to try and determine if there is a difference.

For this exercise, I will be using two Titan ACRM-2 T.H.60 SR's that have been maintained after each shave on a 0.1μm diamond pasted balsa strop. Today and tomorrow I will shave with each to ensure that they both provide reasonably equal quality of shaves.

If they are about equal, I will then shave the rest of the week with one not touching a leather or cloth strop. At the end of the week I will shave with the other SR to see if I can determine any difference in the shave quality. All shaves will include the same pre-shave preparation, soap and brush.

The two identical SR's:
IMG_20211220_085440.jpg
One has its tail lacquered black so that I can easily tell them apart.

This morning I shaved with the black-tail, stropping on a clean leather strop before and cleaning on a chamois strop after, before maintaining on a 0.1μm diamond pasted hanging balsa strop. Tomorrow will be the same with the clear-tail. If they are about equal in shave quality, I will be shaving with the black-tail for the rest of the week without it touching a leather or cloth strop. It will be still maintained on the diamond pasted balsa.

More to follow.
 

steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
A topic was mentioned in another thread on B&B last week about whether there is any benefit to be gained by stropping a SR if it is being maintained after each shave on a 0.1μm diamond pasted balsa strop. This week I am going to try and determine if there is a difference.

For this exercise, I will be using two Titan ACRM-2 T.H.60 SR's that have been maintained after each shave on a 0.1μm diamond pasted balsa strop. Today and tomorrow I will shave with each to ensure that they both provide reasonably equal quality of shaves.

If they are about equal, I will then shave the rest of the week with one not touching a leather or cloth strop. At the end of the week I will shave with the other SR to see if I can determine any difference in the shave quality. All shaves will include the same pre-shave preparation, soap and brush.

The two identical SR's:
One has its tail lacquered black so that I can easily tell them apart.

This morning I shaved with the black-tail, stropping on a clean leather strop before and cleaning on a chamois strop after, before maintaining on a 0.1μm diamond pasted hanging balsa strop. Tomorrow will be the same with the clear-tail. If they are about equal in shave quality, I will be shaving with the black-tail for the rest of the week without it touching a leather or cloth strop. It will be still maintained on the diamond pasted balsa.

More to follow.
I’ve tried both ways and found that leather after balsa does make a difference - a smoother edge. Anyway 50 laps on leather only takes about one minute.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
I’ve tried both ways and found that leather after balsa does make a difference - a smoother edge. Anyway 50 laps on leather only takes about one minute.
I also expect this to be the case, however I have been trained to keep an open mind. I will be interested in what ever result(s) I get.

I normally strop on clean leather about 50 to 60 laps before each shave. This number of laps will be increased accordingly if stropping on one of my shorter traveling strop.

My stropping technique is to hold the strop reasonably tight and strop with just the weight of the blade, almost no deflection in the strop while stropping. I try to minimise any rounding of the edge as I maintain my blades on a diamond pasted hanging balsa strop after each shave (with short X strokes of course). This maintenance is less effective the more the edge is rounded.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
This morning I shaved with the clear-tail Titan ACRM-2 T.H.60. There was almost no difference when compared against the black-tail yesterday, except that my fool's pass this morning was just a tad smoother.

IMG_20210814_093045.jpg

I will remember the slight difference and proceed with the black-tail tomorrow without stropping (just 0.1μm pasted balsa hanging strop maintenance).

Let the show begin!
 
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rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
First shave with the non-stropped black-tail this morning. No noticeable difference. Hanging balsa stroped (only) after the shave.

Tomorrow is another shave with the non-stropped black-tail.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
No. 2 non-stropped black-tail shave. No change.

I will be giving this exercise a break over Christmas Eve, Day and Boxing Day and then will return to it. I have some other razors that want to be used.

I expect that any change in shaving with the non-stropped black-tail will be gradual and not noticed by me until I again shave with the control clear-tail. I will put in six black-tail shaves and then a clear-tail shave for comparison. Repeat as necessary. Unless a noticeable difference is observed between these two SR's beforehand, I will call this quits after 30 black-tail shaves.
 
Again, interesting reading about your findings.

Just a little to the side of this topic, those who like pasted balsa strops with very fine compounds, and especially to those who are using 0.1 micron diamond as a final finisher, you may want to consider CBN 0.1 micron as a test. I have been using it for years with fantastic results and while I have not used 0.1 diamond compound, Todd at the Science of Sharp has SEM images of both 0.1 diamond and CBN, and it looks like the CBN is composed of finer particles. It may leave a finer, sharper and smoother finish than diamond of the same size. I do know that the only abrasive that will NOT leave an amorphous layer in hardened steel is CBN although that is in grinding, not honing or lapping. Anyway, I merely mention this because I find it to be a superb finishing compound and may be worth a try for those interested in chasing the rabbit down the proverbial hole.....
 
Again, interesting reading about your findings.

Just a little to the side of this topic, those who like pasted balsa strops with very fine compounds, and especially to those who are using 0.1 micron diamond as a final finisher, you may want to consider CBN 0.1 micron as a test. I have been using it for years with fantastic results and while I have not used 0.1 diamond compound, Todd at the Science of Sharp has SEM images of both 0.1 diamond and CBN, and it looks like the CBN is composed of finer particles. It may leave a finer, sharper and smoother finish than diamond of the same size. I do know that the only abrasive that will NOT leave an amorphous layer in hardened steel is CBN although that is in grinding, not honing or lapping. Anyway, I merely mention this because I find it to be a superb finishing compound and may be worth a try for those interested in chasing the rabbit down the proverbial hole.....
Thanks for the info. Where do you get it from if I may ask?
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
Again, interesting reading about your findings.

Just a little to the side of this topic, those who like pasted balsa strops with very fine compounds, and especially to those who are using 0.1 micron diamond as a final finisher, you may want to consider CBN 0.1 micron as a test. I have been using it for years with fantastic results and while I have not used 0.1 diamond compound, Todd at the Science of Sharp has SEM images of both 0.1 diamond and CBN, and it looks like the CBN is composed of finer particles. It may leave a finer, sharper and smoother finish than diamond of the same size. I do know that the only abrasive that will NOT leave an amorphous layer in hardened steel is CBN although that is in grinding, not honing or lapping. Anyway, I merely mention this because I find it to be a superb finishing compound and may be worth a try for those interested in chasing the rabbit down the proverbial hole.....
I haven't tried CBN although others have and reported in the pasted balsa strop thread that they noticed no difference between diamond and CBN. I have not experienced an amorphous layer from using diamond.
 
Thanks for the info. Where do you get it from if I may ask?
I am using an ancient spray bottle from Ken Shwartz, which is unfortunately no longer available apparently. That is water based and simply sprayed on and left to dry to use it.

I have ordered a new container from BladeHQ (KME Sharpeners 0.1 Micron CBN Emulsion (160,000 Grit) - Blade HQ - https://www.bladehq.com/item--KME-Sharpeners-0-Micron-CBN--71584) but have not received it yet. The data on this material is beyond sparse- I have no idea how big the bottle is, what the vehicle is (the stuff it is mixed with to allow application) or what the concentration of CBN is. ?? 0.1 micron CBN seems to be somewhat difficult to find so I grabbed this, it was only about $20 so I have little invested.
 
There may well be no difference, and I have never tried diamond 0.1 micron abrasive either. ?? I just wanted to mention this as you are posting your results of leather stropping vs. no leather stropping.

Thanks for posting this BTW, all these types of comparisons are useful I think. Looking forward to your further results.

I haven't tried CBN although others have and reported in the pasted balsa strop thread that they noticed no difference between diamond and CBN. I have not experienced an amorphous layer from using diamond.
 

steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
I also expect this to be the case, however I have been trained to keep an open mind. I will be interested in what ever result(s) I get.

I normally strop on clean leather about 50 to 60 laps before each shave. This number of laps will be increased accordingly if stropping on one of my shorter traveling strop.

My stropping technique is to hold the strop reasonably tight and strop with just the weight of the blade, almost no deflection in the strop while stropping. I try to minimise any rounding of the edge as I maintain my blades on a diamond pasted hanging balsa strop after each shave (with short X strokes of course). This maintenance is less effective the more the edge is rounded.
I’m far to old to be open minded. God bless you my son.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
Shave No. 4 black-tail (non-stropped)

I detected an ever so slight improvement in this SR's performance, both in normal passes, WTG & XTG and the fool's pass.

Shave No. 5 black-tail (non-stropped)

This is starting to get interesting. Again this SR's performed slightly better than shave No. 4 in all passes.

It could all just be in my mind. If tomorrow's shave (No. 6) shows even more improvement, I will compare it with the clear-tail (stropped) the next day.

I do miss the ritual of stropping in leather but this the sacrifice that I must make in the interest of science.
 
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rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
Shave No. 6 with black-tail (non-stropped)

Again I detected an slight improvement in this SR's performance, both in normal passes, WTG & XTG and the fool's pass. These improvements are in edge keenness, comfort is remaining about the same but not degrading.

Tomorrow I will shave with clear-tail (stropped) to compare.
 
I don't know much about film/method edges but my hypothesis is the method/film edge is more fragile then edges people with stones use. I could see stropping without perfect form causing the edge to fall apart some. Compared to a non stropped edge from the method/film edge being already somewhat aligned from the method to get it there. I could see that leading to the non stropped razor doing better than the stropped one.
 
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