Turns out the strop is pretty important

[FloorPizza]

I've been trying to get my self-sharpened blade as sharp and as comfortable as one done by a well known honemeister around here. After much work, head scratching, shaved arm hair, swearing, etc., I've come to the conclusion that I just wasn't stropping it enough. The blade passed every sharpness test out there, it just wasn't comfortable. It was very irritating and scratchy, where Glen's blade was smooooooth.

I stropped it on a paddle strop for thirty minutes straight. I'm not exactly fast on the stropping (I'm more concerned about accurate strokes than total number of strokes), but that's still *alot* of stropping. The shave I had afterwards was just as smooth as Glen's blade.

Now I know what he meant by "strop the crap out of it" after the .25 diamond paste. Turns out Glen's alot smarter than I gave him credit for....

Paddle strop guys: if you're not getting a smooth shave, try more stropping. It sure seems like it takes more laps on a paddle strop than a hanging strop to get the same amount of blade smoothing.

And Glen... thanks again for all your help and patience. I think I'm finally getting somewhere!