I have a 'honing strop', but I have no idea how to use it

My lovely wife gifted me with a gorgeous accessory for my straight razor. It's a Wahl Traditional Barbers Honing Strop. This link is the only place I can find it - I couldn't even get it on the Wahl website

https://www.shavershop.com.au/wahl/h...op-009206.html

It's a beautiful looking thing, but I'm kind of confused by it. One side is a stone, the other seems to be stropping leather. But I have a lot of questions. What grain is the stone? 4,000 grit? 10,000? How can I tell? Do I need to get or oil it prior to use? If I need to wet it, do I need to just have it moist or do I need to speak it. I already have a wide strop so I thought I'd use abrasive paste on the strop side. Would this be a good substitute to a few glass hones?

It should replace any other hone of comparable grit/abrasiveness. I doubt it could replace several.

I don't know what the stone is but I would treat it like a barbers touch up stone and work from there.

Water with Gycerine, Or lather. Use it sparingly 5-10 laps on a razor that is just beginning to loose it's edge. If the stone is decent enough it will pull back the edge.

For honing I would go with stand alone stones. The last thing you want to be doing is putting a lot of water near the stropping side of the strop.

Edit:

I wouldn't use paste on it. Not because it can't take a paste, but because what you have there is perfect for travelling with. You have a touch up hone and strop that will pack into a suitcase or nightbag. I would get used to it naked, learn the stone and how much it can touch up, and from there you have the perfect tool for those weeks away.

I've seen that before, there's a few pages of discussion about them in this thread:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...etup-3.html444

My honest opinion on them - It's a novelty piece that may or may not be functional. The hone side is likely best used wet or oiled, and this will more than likely have a negative impact on the leather. Water will cause it to roll and mildew. Oil can over saturate it, even something that's generally leather friendly like Ballistol. It probably wouldn't hurt it in the short run, but eventually using the stone wet as common practice will ruin that leather strip far faster than a standalone paddle or hanging strop. If you want it to last would either keep it as a wall hanger or maybe paste the leather side and pretend the stone doesn't exist. But generally speaking leather doesn't like the things we do to our hones, and razors don't like being honed dry, so that makes this type of paddle hone/strop combination a rather poor design.

As for the grit rating of the stone - it's a natural, they can't be accurately grit rated. Even if we knew what type of stone was glued to the paddle they're naturally formed over millions of years with no quality control and likely to have a range of performance. Best case scenario it's a fine natural finishing stone that will give a fine shave. At worst it's a dud, and in that case see previous comment about pretending it doesn't exist. The only way to tell is to acquire the skill to hone a razor and evaluate the stone (or have someone nearby that has those skills evaluate it for you).

And believe me if there was a 1 stone honing solution that could replace a few glass stones, especially at that price tag, we would all have that instead of a 3-6 stone (or more) setup of synthetic stones that cost hundreds more.

IF you want to get into honing, the best thing you can do is pickup a high grit synthetic stone. Either a King, Norton, Naniwa, or Shapton in the 8 to 12k range. Send your razor out to be professionally honed so you now what a truly shave ready blade feels like, then when it dulls try to recreate that sharpness with your synthetic stone(s).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lanky

My lovely wife gifted me with a gorgeous accessory for my straight razor. It's a Wahl Traditional Barbers Honing Strop. This link is the only place I can find it - I couldn't even get it on the Wahl website

https://www.shavershop.com.au/wahl/h...op-009206.html

It's a beautiful looking thing, but I'm kind of confused by it. One side is a stone, the other seems to be stropping leather. But I have a lot of questions. What grain is the stone? 4,000 grit? 10,000? How can I tell? Do I need to get or oil it prior to use? If I need to wet it, do I need to just have it moist or do I need to speak it. I already have a wide strop so I thought I'd use abrasive paste on the strop side. Would this be a good substitute to a few glass hones?

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The leather side is a winner.
Use it like any leather paddle strop.

The stone is unknown so start cautiously and see what
happens.

I have a couple OLD paddle strops and the stone is always just ordinary.
In their day they should have been fine with lather for lubricant and
just wipe the lather off having used it like a barber hone three or four
hone strokes not to sharpen but lightly to touch up.

We are spoiled with modern ultra fine hones so gently explore it
and see where it fits. Like a lot of hones it may need to be burnished
with a bar of common steel before it can help a razor.

The leather side is the winner that is for sure.