Quote Originally Posted by Johnny J View Post
To experiment, I re-honed & stopped on the linen, then leather. (I used the side of the linen that had never been smeared with rouge). Boy was that a mistake! The linen ruined the edge completely. I've never seen anything like it. I had a feeling dragging that nice new edge across those cobblestones was going to be a bad idea...

OK, back to the good old chrome ox.
This makes the second or third time that I have seen this comment in this forum. I have never had a problem with the stiff linen damaging an edge and I have used mine regularly. This problem may be related to the fact that you also mentioned that you messed up an edge on newspaper.

Does it make sense that only an overhoned edge would be susceptible to damage from linen and/or newspaper stropping? Or could it be stropping technique? A combination??