Pasted Paddle Strop

I wasn't really sure if this should go in the honing or strop sections, but figured I was safer here in the newby corny.

Anyway, I have been spending way to much money on soaps and stuff, when I really should have been getting my self ready for daily up-keep. I know I will need to get my self a norton or something like it for real honing every couple of months, but right now it is out of my price range. I had to pay the electric bill. Still I would like to polish my blade every week or two just to keep that cutting edge in good shape. Right now a Coticule is way out of my price range, as are most higher grit polish stones. I know you guys use Pasted strops a lot. I watched Lynn's video yesterday and he talked quite a bit about pasted strops, but I had a few more questions.

First) I know a pasted strop will work for regular maintenance. But does it work just as well for polishing after you take it through a pyramid on your norton 4/8 k or whatever you may be using, or do you still find that a higher grit polishing stone works best?

Second) I was planning on ordering one of Tony's paddle strops, and had thought it would be good to just have him paste it. Now he uses a 1.0 and .5 paste on his if you have him paste two sides. Lynn seems to recommend a .5 and then .25 paste on a strop for polishing, and from reading, most of you guys seem to concur. Because of this I wanted to see what you guys thought. Should I just have him paste it or should I get some .5 and .25 paste? I don't mean any disrespect to you at all Tony. I just would like as much information as possible.

Three) If I end up going with getting my own paste, what do you guys recommend. Lynn showed a multitude of pastes in his video. I was leaning towards the diamond paste, but I really don't know. I don't know if this should matter, but I would like it to be easily spreadable so that I can get it over the whole surface. I know some of the ones Lynn mentioned were on the thinner side. This is one of the reasons I was leaning towards the diamond paste as it seemed easier to manage.

And Four) Lynn talks about the Thiers-Issard linen paste. I guess this basically is also a polishing/sharpening paste. Can I just put that on the linen of my everyday strop, or do I put that on a dedicated pasting strop? If I get a pasted paddle strop, then do I even need to concern my self with the T-I linen paste?

Those are my questions. I will be getting a norton 4/8k stone as soon as I can. I want to get to work on cleaning up that blade my uncle gave me.

Anyway, my shipment just came in from Mama Bear. I am excited and I am going to go check them out now. Will post in Soaps section.

Matt

Probably a little advanced question for the newbie corner. Pastes are pretty subjective. I'll start the replies with this. You'll be reapplying pastes so I would lean towards you getting your own. I like to use .5 alone. Without a stone though, maybe 1m might be good to get too. At .5 I'd say the diamond pastes are expensive, but some razors work best with diamond pastes. If your maintaining a stainless or super hard carbon maybe consider the diamond paste. Tony usually makes your paddle to order. If you get a 4 sided go for what you want. Maybe have Tony paste it and then get some .5 too. The .5 would probably become your workhorse paste anyway.

If your a pure pyramid honer it might not do as well as just polishing a lot on a stone then going to .5. But the pastes will polish the edge regardless of when you do it. I.E. to update or improve the edge, both work fine for me.

A pyramid leaves you with a lot of striations to work through. Polishing is best done on an already smooth bevel.

Hopefully that makes sense, as I can see that might cause confusion.

Matt,
On the paste selection my pull down menu simply lists the most common choices for 1, 2, 3 or 4 sides. I can always use other grits or types, just wanted to make the common choices easy to find. You can just specify what grits/types you prefer during checkout.

Some consider 0.25 too fine and it may create an edge that is weak and needs more frequent refreshing. Other say it is a must. For me, I think it is to much.

I use diamond in 3.0, 1.0, 0.5 and 0.25 as well as Chromium oxide in 0.5 and a boron compound around 2.0. I have been looking at other choices too for linen but that is down the road a ways.

The latest "fanatic special" is a 4 side, all pasted with 3.0 (to use in place of the 4K side of the Norton if you want to dry hone), 1.0 (a workhorse polishing grit), 0.5 diamond (great for stainless and TI razors) and another 0.5 side, chromium oxide this time as it leaves a very smooth face friendly edge. I suggest using either of the 0.5 sides but not both on the same edge unless you reduce the passes or you can over hone.

I find the pastes last a very long time so the pre-pasting is an economical start over buying 4 tubes of paste all at once. I figure guys will add them one at a time later when buying soaps, etc....at Classic Shaving so don't sell the pastes separately at this time.

Tony

Thanks Tony, I will probably do that then. I will pick one up as soon as I have room in the old budget. I don't have much expereince with different hardnesses. I know how hard it is to hone a stainless steel blade, and I have experience sharpening my henkel kitchen knives on a friends stone. As far as the Dovo that I got from you, would I use the .5 diamond or the .5 chromium oxide side?

Matt

Try 'em both. See what you get. A lot of this is just practice. A lot of the success is based as much on the variety of surface structures your using as the grit itself. I'd try the CrO first as its cheaper to replace and save the diamond stuff for special problem razors. I find the CrO works better, with more razors, than the diamond stuff. But I bet that it has a lot to do with just practicing, learning the speed of it and when to stop.

Replace, reapply whenever the blackening of the steel becomes overpowering compared to the green of the CrO or the grayish white of the diamond.