Thread: How long between honings with a Pasted Strop?

I made a bench hone with a 3x12" piece of leather I got from Tony on a machine-flattened piece of marble tile, using a contact cement. Granite's good too. Using a 0.5 micron Chromium Oxide abrasive powder (Hand American) mixed with Tony's strop dressing. It's still in the testing stage.

Originally Posted by Geoff

Hello All,

I have been wet shaving with a DE for a while now and am looking to get a straight.

I plan on purchasing a pre-honed razor and was wondering how long it would stay keen using a pasted paddle strop.

I had the:
Heirloom Combination, Vintage Style 4 Sided Paddle Strop

In mind with 3.0, 1, 0.5 micron pastes; leaving the 4th side red latigo for honing.

Will the paddle strop be acceptable for pre-shave stroping or would I be better off with a hanging strop in addition?

If purchasing a hanging strop and norton 4k/8k makes more sense I can certainly go that route too; just trying to find the best equipment to start with.

Thanks!
-Geoff

It depends on what you're planning to do. If all you want to do is maintain your razors, the pated strop should be fine. But if you plan on restoring Ebay razors, you'll need the Norton 4/8. If you get the Norton, I would add a two sided paddle with 1 or .6 paste and plain leather.

Originally Posted by honedright

Just for your consideration, I don't use any pastes, just a plain hanging strop, and can go for a year or longer without rehoning. I use the same razor everyday and stropping keeps it HHT keen. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't use paste if you want, I just think it's more technique than anything else.

!!!!

You're saying you can get 365 or more shaves between honings?

Make sure you use a really flat surface for your bench hones. Machine-flattened piece of marble or granite would be an excellent option because it's perfectly flat and looks good. Your other option would be MDS and it's DIRT-cheap.

Ceramic tiles would NOT work for this application. Read up on the bench-hone thread that I started as lots of skilled people chimed in with excellent advice that helped me come up with something that looks like it will work and look good while at it.

Originally Posted by honedright

Just for your consideration, I don't use any pastes, just a plain hanging strop, and can go for a year or longer without rehoning. I use the same razor everyday and stropping keeps it HHT keen. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't use paste if you want, I just think it's more technique than anything else.

Are you saying you use only a strop and don't even refresh the edge with a hone or pasted strop for 365 shaves?

One a closely related subject:

How often does the paste itself need to be refreshed?

Also, if for any reason one wanted to change the paste used on a paddle strop, is that possible? Or are you pretty much stuck with what you start with on a peice of leather. (I can imagine that trying to go to a finer grit at least would be problematic).

-Mo

Originally Posted by moses

One a closely related subject:

How often does the paste itself need to be refreshed?

Also, if for any reason one wanted to change the paste used on a paddle strop, is that possible? Or are you pretty much stuck with what you start with on a peice of leather. (I can imagine that trying to go to a finer grit at least would be problematic).

-Mo

Time to refreshing paste varies a lot. It depends on how much you use it (of course), but also how you apply it and how you strop.

You can change the paste on a strop. To do that you need to clean it with the handcleaner that mechanics use. I think it's called Goop. Once the leather is clean, let it dry, and you can apply any paste you want.

Originally Posted by moses

How often does the paste itself need to be refreshed?

Mo,
As I'm fairly new with using abrasive pastes, I recently asked the same question and the answer I got was "Until you notice that the sharpening effect is significantly reduced. The strop can turn black and still not need a re-application of paste."

When I sharpened all of my new razors for sale on pasted strops only (9.0 to 0.25 micron) I refreshed my paddles with new paste once every month and a half on average. I was doing my own razors, maybe 1 or 2 a week and anywhere from 6 to 10 customer razors a week on the same paddles. That is a lot of stropping before repasting.

Now that I am only doing my own razors, a rotation of 14 pieces I can't remember the last time I applied pastes. I think it was early summer.

Diamond abrasive will keep cutting for a long time.

How do you guys do with the boron and chromium oxide pastes as far as longevity?

Thanks,
Tony

how can you know it's time to re-apply paste, does it give a discolourisation or does it draw differently? :|