Thread: What's your preference for general upkeep?

So a simple question for my fellow newbies, and please don't hesitate to chime in old-timers.

What do you prefer to use for general upkeep of your razor?

Personally I like to use a paddle strop for daily stropping. I have a two sided paddle, with one side pasted with 0.5 micron paste. I use the raw leather side daily to strop before shaving. The pasted side I might run 5-10 passes once a month or so. I had my primary razor professionally honed when I bought it, and after 6 months this system seems to be working for me. It still shaves without pulling and generally makes me happy in the mornings.

On the other hand, I keep reading about people who use a barber hone for occasional maintenance rather than pasted leather. While there must be a certain amount of personal preference involved, I can't help but think about the difference in direction of the blade. On the pasted strop, the blade is being drawn spine first while on the barber hone it is pulled edge first . . . unless I'm terribly mistaken in which case somebody please correct me. I would have to think that some difference would be realized between these two methods.

I've stuck with the pasted paddle for two reasons:

1) I already own it and I'm cheap as dirt

2) Even when I tried, I couldn't find a barber hone that wasn't either a cheap imitation or 300 years old and cracked like my grandad's face.


So what do others use for general upkeep of their blade? Anyone had the gumption to do a study on the matter?

I read an interesting scientific article on knife sharpening methods, which included scanning electron microscope images of knife edges after sharpening with different methods. (uh, now that I think about it . . I think I downloaded that article from this forum . . duh.) A straight razor was part of the study, but it didn't spend much time comparing methods on the straight itself. The only conclusion drawn in the paper was that 0.5 micron pasted stropping did improve the edge compared to an unpasted strop, when viewed under the electron microscope. That didn't seem to be a big revelation to me. On the other hand, I have a hard time believing that two guys in lab coats were using perfect technique on the strop. (No offense to guys in labcoats, of course. Scientists are cool, but the authors didn't seem to indicate that an experienced hand was at work during the study.)

Anyone want to throw out their methods to the peanut gallery? Being a relative newbie, I'm interested in what others find is working.

Originally Posted by spiffy_chimp

So a simple question for my fellow newbies, and please don't hesitate to chime in old-timers.

What do you prefer to use for general upkeep of your razor?

Personally I like to use a paddle strop for daily stropping. I have a two sided paddle, with one side pasted with 0.5 micron paste. I use the raw leather side daily to strop before shaving. The pasted side I might run 5-10 passes once a month or so. I had my primary razor professionally honed when I bought it, and after 6 months this system seems to be working for me. It still shaves without pulling and generally makes me happy in the mornings.

On the other hand, I keep reading about people who use a barber hone for occasional maintenance rather than pasted leather. While there must be a certain amount of personal preference involved, I can't help but think about the difference in direction of the blade. On the pasted strop, the blade is being drawn spine first while on the barber hone it is pulled edge first . . . unless I'm terribly mistaken in which case somebody please correct me. I would have to think that some difference would be realized between these two methods.

I've stuck with the pasted paddle for two reasons:

1) I already own it and I'm cheap as dirt

2) Even when I tried, I couldn't find a barber hone that wasn't either a cheap imitation or 300 years old and cracked like my grandad's face.


So what do others use for general upkeep of their blade? Anyone had the gumption to do a study on the matter?

I read an interesting scientific article on knife sharpening methods, which included scanning electron microscope images of knife edges after sharpening with different methods. (uh, now that I think about it . . I think I downloaded that article from this forum . . duh.) A straight razor was part of the study, but it didn't spend much time comparing methods on the straight itself. The only conclusion drawn in the paper was that 0.5 micron pasted stropping did improve the edge compared to an unpasted strop, when viewed under the electron microscope. That didn't seem to be a big revelation to me. On the other hand, I have a hard time believing that two guys in lab coats were using perfect technique on the strop. (No offense to guys in labcoats, of course. Scientists are cool, but the authors didn't seem to indicate that an experienced hand was at work during the study.)

Anyone want to throw out their methods to the peanut gallery? Being a relative newbie, I'm interested in what others find is working.

I use a 3 line swaty for my touchups. I have a 4 sided pasted paddle as well but usually use that after an extensive honing on the Norton. I think the edge on the swaty is a little better than a paddle and lasts longer. That is just my opinion. I would have been just fine using a paddle exclusively, but ended up buying a swaty on ebay about a year ago. Since then it has been real handy to just take it out from the drawer and give it a few swipes to a razor before shaving when need be. You can find them on ebay for nominal prices most of the time. They may need a little work, (lapping and chip removal) but after that they are great tools.