Thread: wool strop with diamond spray

i have been shaving with my new wacker for 6 shaves,just leather stroping between shaves with great results. so tonite i thought i would bring the edge up a notch, i stropped it 10 times on the wool felt strop with .5 diamond spray followed by 70 laps on leather and the results made the razor worse! what went wrong???

Too much of a good thing ? I use a really light touch when I strop on the felt with the 0.5 diamond paste. No draw just skimming it. I only use it when I feel the edge needs it. So far so good.

Maybe it was the felt or maybe you slipped up a little on the leather strokes.
Was the felt a hanging strop or bench strop?

If you have a 10x loupe or something similar, check the edge for micro-chipping.

Usually, either too much pressure on the blade or slightly lifting the spine off of the strop during the stroke is the cause of strop-induced blade dulling. Just to make sure I had it covered, I've done them both.

Sometimes, I have finished honing and using pasted balsa (0.25 micron diamond) and gone to the linen and leather strop, and come away with what I think is a dulled blade. What I did to work around this is the following...

(1) Learned by long use of the HHT with my hair how to judge the sharpness of the blade with this test.
(2) Stropped 10 passes on linen, and tested using HHT.
(3) Stropped 10 passes on leather, and tested using HHT.

By MANY such tests, going from the 0.25 micron stage to the strops, testing at every stage using the HHT, I slowly got a feel for the use of the strops. The pressure, the number of repetitions, etc.

I would suggest going back to the 0.5 diamond, and then back to linen and test your blade. A few passes on leather and test your blade. You get the idea.

Have you shaved with it since you did the diamond spray or are you basing your assessment on a test like HHT or TPT? Sometimes the tests can be deceiving.

Be careful with the diamond! As Jimmy says it's much better to use a VERY light touch when on the diamond. That stuff will cut metal exceptionally well and will easily scrape up any smooth surface you may have on your edges. It's great when necessary but you need to cut with it very lightly and then make sure to polish the blade afterward using the felt/linen and then good leather. Personally I always go to chromium oxide after any cutting of the blade with a hone or diamond. Cutting the edge is still cutting and it must be polished again to get back to a smooth shave.

Originally Posted by nessmuck

i have been shaving with my new wacker for 6 shaves,just leather stroping between shaves with great results. so tonite i thought i would bring the edge up a notch, i stropped it 10 times on the wool felt strop with .5 diamond spray followed by 70 laps on leather and the results made the razor worse! what went wrong???

If you don't have any other honing equipment, send it to me and I'll hone it back up for you on me and then next time it needs a refresh, you can experiment some more. Usually 10 light strokes on the felt does it. I usually spray the .5 on up and down 3 times and then let it dry over night and it is normally good for a dozen or so refreshes.

Lynn

thanks for the offer lynn. i just got my honing stones from you and will see if i can smooth up the wacker.