Thread: Polishing after honing with pastes

I am getting an OK shave after honing but I want my razors sharper.

I don't have a coticule stone, but I have a dovo loom strop with green and red dovo pastes, and a linen and leather dovo hanging strop. After doing pyramids on the norton 4000/8000k, I have been using the red dovo paste to polish the edge, then I strop with leather. I am still not happy with the results. Is there some step that I am missing?

I am afraid of overing honing so I am trying to use pastes to finish my edge. I just ordered the green dovo paste because I thought that I needed something coarser then the red paste. But after reading threads today, I think the green paste might be too coarse. Classicshaving.com says it is 6 microns coarse which I just learned is coarser than the 4000k norton. I haven't put the green paste on my loom strop yet because I know that once you put it on you can't get it off.

Does anyone use the green dovo pastes?

I just watched 'The World of Straight Razor Shaving' again and Lynn said that the green paste, it looked like the dovo paste, was .5 microns.

Can anyone confirm this?

Chromium Oxide is a green paste, used by many on these forums as a final polishing compound before shaving. If Lynn said on his video that it is 0.5 micron, than he's talking about Chromium Oxide.

The Dovo green paste is NOT Chromium Oxide. It is much coarser, 6 micron is probably correct. If you hone on a solid hone till the 8K level, you don't need Dovo green paste. Chromium Oxide, on the other hand, could do great things for your 8K edge.

Bart.

Two different Green pastes there, Lynn uses the Crome oxide at .50 the Dovo Green is closer to 5-8 microns


Hehe what Bart of the faster fingers than I just said

What about the dovo red paste? Should I use it after I hone?

This is sorta where the alchemy of honing gets funny
I believe that yes you will get a benefit from the Dovo Red paste (3-5 microns) and an even bigger benefit from the Dovo Black paste(1-3 microns) and a huge jump in smoothness from .50 Cr

But before any paste helps you have to have a properly honed razor....

Question??? How many laps on the Red pasted strop are you doing????

I do about 20-30 laps with the red paste.

When I hone, I do the pyramid reps suggested in The World of Straight Razor Shaving. 3-3 1-3 1-5 on 4000/8000k norton. Then I strop with the red paste and then leather and then test shave. If the razor pulled hairs, then I would to a 1-3 1-5 pyramid and then strop with paste then leather. It has gotten several of my practice razors sharp enough to be good shaves, but it seems like it is hit or miss. It seems like razors sharpen differently.

Thats a lot of laps of the red paste....
My suggestion would be drop the red to 10 light laps or try dropping it out of the mix totally and increase your finishing laps on the 8k...
It seems that you are almost there, you might try 20 very light laps on the 8k letting it go to dry to squeak the most out of it, then straight to leather and see if that helps.....

Another way would be the 10 red then 20 on newspaper then leather.....

And yes Razors sharpen differently!!!!!

So I should nix the dovo green paste, and put .5 micron diamond paste on a strop, then progress from the hone to the red paste, the .5 micron diamond paste, then the leather strop?

What do you mean by 'letting it go to dry to squeak the most out of it'?

And how does newspaper compair in coarseness to the pastes?