Thread: 2 goals

I think that honing & stropping are completely different. Honing is about removing material, & stropping is about re-aligning it.
For me, it's easier to run a blade over a strop than to get out a hone.
Experiments are great & help with further development, but my view on this one is that our ancestors had access to the same razors, hones & strops that many of us use today. We've got stainless now, & no doubt soon Seraphims ceramic blade, but many of the razors we're using are vintage. If our ancestors felt that stropping was necassary when this was their daily chore, it probably has an important place.
Keep us updated!

Originally Posted by ben.mid

I think that honing & stropping are completely different. Honing is about removing material, & stropping is about re-aligning it.
For me, it's easier to run a blade over a strop than to get out a hone.
Experiments are great & help with further development, but my view on this one is that our ancestors had access to the same razors, hones & strops that many of us use today. We've got stainless now, & no doubt soon Seraphims ceramic blade, but many of the razors we're using are vintage. If our ancestors felt that stropping was necassary when this was their daily chore, it probably has an important place.
Keep us updated!

Super good points. Stainless, yes. But this is not an idea for every razor as yet, but something to do to see what can be learned. Maybe even why our ancestors taught us as they did? I was encouraged when Lyn said he didn't strop 'til after the first shave, unless that was a typo What was taught may not be my concern. It's not for suffers of LBS latent barber's syndrome
Often recommended is HM job for a comparator. Was it sharpened on your hones? How'd e do dat? I have a crappy cheap microsope from the rshack, and advice from you guys on where nats should fit in progression.
I can see microchips, how mild tarnish effects the edge, skin cells and crystalline structures in the steel.
When I shave I get as much as I can get. There is no point in beating oneself up of course.
I'm just saying that my last pass off the coticule was equal to the best stropped non-pasted razor I've got so far. So what the hells why not coast it. I do believe that 10 passes will recomplete what the shave did to the edge for sure. i didn't scope it out

Ok so my strops are irregular. I mean to try and make a better one. I also mean to set up a case 132, 133 imps up on a 6000 king stone/ 5000 shapton / loom like pastey,

but they need cleaning up as well.