Thread: Turning that finishing progression around

First off: I almost never post a thread in the "advanced honing" section, since I think a lot of questions in this forum should be in the basic section, but I think this might qualify.

A while ago I read a thread wherein Glen stated that he used pasted strops AFTER stropping the razor, and got better results. Don't ask me when the heck that was, but it was a while ago.

That got me started on a little experiment, to wit:

1. Take 10 razors of different makes, grinds and sizes and set them aside as a rotation

2. Hone those razors with the usual method: from coarse to fine, finishing on a Nakayama and a balsa Chrome Ox. paddle strop until they are "shaving sharp" by my standards. (That would be: making arm hairs fly away with minimal tug, and little to no problem with ATG passes on my neck.)

3. Shave with those for 5+ "rotations" and make little notes of the shave quality as I ran through them over and over.

4. Re-hone those razors from coticule on up to Nakayama and balsa again except I took them to the Nakayama and Chrome Ox. AFTER I stropped 50 on linen and about 60-70 on leather. Then I re-stropped them on leather again.

5. Re-run the rotation again for approx the same number of uses and make further little notes.

Results: I have been getting significantly better results with the strop before finishing method. Much smoother and sharper, and I think the edges might last longer too. That part I haven't spent very much time on yet, but it looks promising.


Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Wow good memory... that goes way, way, way, back, In fact that one is actually in the archives....

Poona brought up that practice again about a year ago... as far as I know he and I were the only two using it at all....

You have taken it to a new level though and I will be waiting for more of your results....

This is actually a technique that I have been using on those big Friodurs to get them smooth..... I actually use a .50Cr after the first shave and re-touch the edge strop and paste and strop to get them smooth....

I think of steel as taffy. You pull it to consistency, not knead it. Iron is different, but I digress.

Metal is crystalline, and develops on a molecular level. When the objective is a sharp blade, I have always thought it better to stretch the edge, and let it bounce back to structure on a planer level, than to scrunch it and scrape it away on a 3d level.

But I'm a strop guy.

Just a thought.

Thank You Joe for doing this test.

Thanks for taking the time to try this and post the results. I was doing a variation of this while honing. I have a "nappy" suede like paddle strop that I use while honing to clean and straighten the edge when honing.
My thinking was that the act of edge first honing would be slightly deforming the edge resulting in less contact with the hone. The paddle strop would also clean out any swarf that may have become imbedded in the scratch pattern. However I never conducted a test like you have.

Again, many thanks!

Thanks for this test. Very interesting!

I'm now kind of curious, if one cycle of this works great, would more be better? That is, could you could get any better results by going back to the nakayama/pastes again, then stropping, and repeating. A few cycles of strop, nakayama, paste, strop, nakayama, paste, strop, etc. Or maybe one is all you need?

Originally Posted by pjrage

Thanks for this test. Very interesting!

I'm now kind of curious, if one cycle of this works great, would more be better? That is, could you could get any better results by going back to the nakayama/pastes again, then stropping, and repeating. A few cycles of strop, nakayama, paste, strop, nakayama, paste, strop, etc. Or maybe one is all you need?

Good question, I haven't tried that. I think it would be a matter of diminishing returns...but that's what it's all about with finishing hones and pasted paddles and whatnot.