Quote Originally Posted by Blade Wielder View Post
So should I email the people at Dictionary.com
Thanks for being so clever!

I'm used to seeing Angstrom as 10^(-10) meters (that's the only way I could figur out to do an exponential). That's 10^(-7) mm, which is 1/10,000,000. I'm soory, my quick mental arithmetic was wrong, but all the other numbers were not.

You're absolutely right: it's not rocket science -- it's shaving science.

You said earlier that any sharpening the strop does is on a microscopic level which "doesn't matter." You've got to be kidding.

This isn't "magic wand" stuff no one is able to explain; stropping provides the finishing touches to the blade's edge, which, in addition to the water and all of our scented shaving soaps and creams, makes the shave better. You may not be able to see the changes in the blade with the naked eye, but that doesn't change the fact that there are changes when you draw the edge across the linen and leather sides of a strop.
Please don't display your ignorance. This proves that you're making it all to complicated, because you don't understand.

I've looked at all this under a microscope at up to 200x, and I know quite well what's going on. If you want to see microscope shots, go to Robert Williams' site srtraightedgerazors.com and do a search for "scratch" you'll find microphotos at 200x of a razor being honed from Ebay to stropping (about a year ago). You should also read Prof Verhoeven's treatise on knife sharpening experiments, where he clearly concludes that ordinary stropping does not increase sharpness, after honing. Then do a little research on what the primary purpose of honing is, and you can come back, and we'll talk. Before that, you're nothing but a wiseass.

Just to get you started, I'll tell you that the primary purpose for a strop is to realign the "fin", which is made up of microscopic teeth (you can't see them even at 200x). When yo shave, those teeth get spread in all directions and make the edge look wider. WHen you strop it pushes those teeth in, standing them straight up and making the edge look thinner or sharper. That may be why you think the strop has sharpened the edge.

Over time 1-2 weeks stropping will fail to restore sharpness. At that point you can touch up the razor quickly with a fine hone or pasted strop. That removes material (sharpens) and and restores the sharpness, so you can go back to just stropping until the next time you need to refresh.

On an absolute level, eveerything removes material, including your finger. But a strop removes so little (probably orders of magnitude below a .25 micron paste) that it's considered non-abrasive, and we ignore any amount of material it might remove. Sure you could use it to remove material, just like water can wear down a stone, but it would take over ten times the amount of stropping you normally do.

I do strop after honing, but not a lot, maybe 20 reps. I find that it smooths the edge to my liking. Others may not care. Robert has a photo of a razor after stropping. What you can see is that it caused the scratch lines f the 12K hone to fade slightly. That's the smoothing I'm talking about. If you want to call that sharpening, fine. Then rubbing the edge with my finger sharpens it.