Thread: Strop + Barber's Hone: Right Sequence

(BTW, I never lift the spine while stropping--that's the element of the razor that I always keep in contact with the strop. I just pivot it on the spine, so by the time the edge makes contact with the leather, the razor is already well in motion, the edge always following the spine. As for pressure, I keep a bit less than the weight of my hand against a strop that I keep approximately 75% taut.)

So, I gave one of the razors about 50 passes on the strop, and it was still pulling. So I passed it about 10 times on each side on the hone, then stropped it again. Pulls a little less, but is still a far cry from my *good* razor. What to do?

It may just need a lot more laps. Especially if your skipping any linen stropping and just going to the leather. If more stropping doesn't make it feel better than something is wrong.

Just make sure that you clean the blade between using stones, pastes and strop you do not want cross contamination of different grits on the strop or other honing media.

Beyond that, like everyone has said, rather start off fine with the strop and then work your way up to more abrasive media, it is the way I progress, first pastes then if that does not work finishing hone, up to the lower grits to do some more work if required. My reasoning behind this is I am lazy, rather not have to go to far and then do more work to remove stria from the edge.....

So, if you look under a magnifier, is there a way to tell if the edge is rolled vs chipped? Is it longer bright areas vs spots?

If it is determined that it is rolled, what level of grit should you use to hone? I'm assuming that a pasted strop won't fix it, is that correct?

How do you know how many passes to take on the hone? Do 10 and then check?

I have one blade with a curved edge (near wedge). Not sure if I'm not quite stopping right to keep the heel and toe sharp or if it is possible rolling a bit. Seems a tiny bit bright at each end, but nothing that a pin test catches on.

The most common way an edge gets rolled is lifting the spine at the end of a stroke trying to imitate the stropping stroke seen on TV and the movies.

Keep the spine on the strop, stop and flip.

Or at the flip where the razor is still moving forward when the edge slaps the leather and bites the strop, again thank you movie stropping.

Or too much pressure, the edge is very fragile. The pin test is not a definitive test for a rolled edge, when the roll breaks off it becomes a chip.

Looking down on the edge it could look like series of small chips or a jagged shiny long chip where it has broken off or just the roll is reflecting.

How to repair it depends on how deep the chip or the roll is.

With small chips, maybe you could strop it out with an aggressive pasted strop, but if you suspect rolling chances are it is more than just one area and you will want to build a whole new edge.

You can go backwards in grits until you fine enough grit to bring the bevels back together, buy really you are probably better off building a new bevel from a 1 or 4k. In the long run it is faster than fighting a crumbling edge.

And if you have chips, no matter the cause, they have to be removed to get a straight comfortable edge. It could very well be the bevel was not completely set when honed, not uncommon with smiling edges.