Wow , you have a strop progression :)
What's "Leaded Linen"?
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A fire hose type strop, rubbed with lead.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...05283d1aa6.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...8002a272d4.jpg
Just like using Cr/ox, but a whole lot less aggressive. Polishes and smooths out the edge. IMO
I heard about it, and don't use that part of the strop anyhow, and the original paste had washed out of it when I cleaned it up for restoration. So it was a perfect candidate to try it on.
I like it...but only use it as the first strop in the progression for newly honed blades. When one starts to shave poorly, I try 100 passes on the med. draw Russian, then the leaded linen if that doesn't work. If that fails..Cr/ox pasted strop, but I've yet had to resort to anything but leather...so far. [emoji56]
You go Mike that lead is a great medium. Tom sent me a chunk and I've been using it on my daily strop routine,, I like the effect . Smooth. Tc
I honed a Greaves & Sons that I just finished cleaning up. I thought I'd have a little fun and use my largest and smallest hones. After setting the bevel on a King 1k, I went to a Shapton 2000 then on to these... I used the brick-colored side on the big Norton followed by the black side with a drop of dish soap. This thing works quickly and gives a great edge, extremely sharp so I like to tone it down a little with a coticule after the black side. For this I used my smallest coti but one of my favs. The Norton is something like 12 x 4 inches and the little coti is almost 6 x 1 1/8 or so. I like handheld honing so the Norton sits halfway up my forearm while the coti fits right in the palm. It was a good exercise and the resulting edge was right in that sweet spot combining sharp with comfortable.
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You know that's a very accurate description,, I wish I had thought of that! But it's true, I don't hone, I only touch upon a regular schedule, you know 5-10 laps on a Nani 12kevery 12 shaves but since my razors are going on the lead I've been going more like 20 shaves easy. So just like paste but I feel it still keeps that buttery smooth edge going a long time. Tc
Re-finished a Hamada frameback for a friend of mine in France. It was already shave-ready, we're just swapping edges so I used a tomo and a nice karasu razor hone that does smooth really well. The frame is soft so I used 1 mil DuPont Kapton to protect the frame without increasing the angle much and also because it is what he used to hone it. Finished up with a few dry strokes on the fine polishing uchigumori, some palm stropping, the 20/50 on the Kanoyama. Silent HHT root in or out.
Cheers, Steve
Well I'm down to honing around three razors a week. Today's hone job is a Joseph Smith & Sons on a full Arkansas progression. The bevel was set on a Washita stone. I went with a layer of tape since there was a visible chip to be honed out. Then the blade was taken through the rest of the progression- soft, hard, surgical black. And then what I did next was interesting. I took off the layer of tape, inked the bevel with permanent marker and did 10 x strokes on the surgical black Arkansas to see how far from the edge I would be without it. Ink still there. 10 more xstrokes. Most of it's gone. 10 more X strokes and the ink was all gone scratches all the way to the edge. I spared the blade all the hone wear at the same time within 30 extra strokes on the finishing stone I get away from any kind of future need of tape for touch ups etc. BEST OF BOTH WORLDS.
Stropped and shaved and this razor is one of my top edges. A BBS shave in two effortless passes. God I love my Arkansas stones. I haven't used anything else in roughly two straight years!
Lead is pretty damn dangerous to mess with. Plenty of boys in my hood have come down with a sudden case of lead poisoning !:rofl2:
Oh Yes! It's actually fairly easy to touch up a blade without tape (whether or not the blade was honed with tape) I know as I've done it!
Glen (gssixgun) showed that in this video quite awhile back. I'm very happy that you've found it true also! :tu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMchDtXzUO4&t=14s
Roy, I actually seen that video a while back also. After watching that I started setting bevels with tape and then removing the tape for the rest of the progression. This is the first time I went all the way through and "touched up" the razor without the tape. My only problem with tape in the past has been I can never remember if I used tape or not when it came to the touch up. now that's not a problem.
The angle difference is indeed minimal and almost negligent while the spine protection is welcomed.
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Not really , I don't live in fear of the things that have become hot topics. We live in a world full of dangerous chemicals that are in our everyday products. Heck I was even raised in a neighborhood that had Dioxin contaminated oil used on the roads that we walked barefoot in for years before they discovered it then they bought the whole town and made it ground zero for the cleanup. I work in the oilfield more chums in one day at work than most will ever see in a lifetime. I walked in jungles full of the Dioxin again when it was sprayed to kill the jungle foliage. I,m not saying that these things aren't bad for you , I,m just saying we tend to blow it up for the exposure we get to these things. I've also been working and handling lead all my life, I'm still here. But if I die from my lead strop, then I'll die smoothly shaved. Tv
Yes, pure soft lead.
Lead is heavy, so dust from sanding a wedge or vapors from melting it, drop very quickly, if ever rise at all. The biggest threat that lead has is thru ingestion.
Wash your hands after handling it.
Don't put it in your mouth.
And don't get shot.!
You'll be just fine.[emoji4]
I wonder how many guys who are scared of lead use CrO pasted strops :hmmm:
thee only lead that would be scaring me is when its sitting at the end of a barrel that is not un my control.
Bad if reloading and breathing vapor, looks relatively innocent otherwise, right?
I do know several people who cast their own bullets and who now don't because they had high lead levels. I always thought it might have been because of handling the bullets, but it looks like they likely breathed it.
I would beg to differ:
http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9923471
We're comparing a dust that is an irritant, but that has no link to cancer, to a solid (the lead) assuming it stays as a solid and is not ingested. If any dust becomes airborne or it's ingested by touching and then eating (which I suppose could happen if you were handling the lead and then eating something later), it's a different story. I know people who have had acute lead toxicity (not from shaving, of course), but I don't know anyone who has ever been irritated by CrO III. Here's a comparison of lead's effects:
Hazard Statements (GHS-US) : May form combustible dust concentrations in air
H302+H332 - Harmful if swallowed or if inhaled
H350 - May cause cancer
H360 - May damage fertility or the unborn child
H372 - Causes damage to organs through prolonged or repeated exposure
H400 - Very toxic to aquatic life
H410 - Very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects
Precautionary Statements (GHS-US) : P201 - Obtain special instructions before use.
P202 - Do not handle until all safety precautions have been read and understood.
P260 - Do not breathe dust.
P264 - Wash hands, forearms, and other exposed areas thoroughly after handling.
P270 - Do not eat, drink or smoke when using this product.
P271 - Use only outdoors or in a well-ventilated area.
P273 - Avoid release to the environment.
P280 - Wear protective gloves, protective clothing, eye protection, face protection,
respiratory protection.
Other Hazards Not Contributing to the Classification: Exposure may aggravate those with pre-existing eye, skin, or respiratory
conditions. May form combustible dust concentrations in air. Attention! - Contains lead. Exposure may aggravate individuals with
pre-existing skin, kidney, liver, and pulmonary disorders.
(that is for airborne lead. I have no clue what makes it airborne, though, I'll admit - aside from bullet casters melting it into ingots and casting with it - that definitely makes airborne vapors. Does any of it get airborne if you smear it on a strop and then strop? I have no idea. Certainly if all you do is pick up a bar, and put it down, and then go wash your hands, there's not much to worry about).
Here's the narrative for CrO III from fisher scientific (as a dust, I don't know of any other form - a wax bar of cro III would certainly be a lot less harmful than a lead bar):
Warning! May cause allergic skin reaction. May cause eye, skin, and respiratory tract irritation. Hygroscopic (absorbs moisture from the air).
Target Organs: None.
Potential Health Effects
Eye: Dust may cause mechanical irritation.
Skin: May cause skin irritation. May cause an allergic reaction in certain individuals.
Ingestion: Ingestion of large amounts may cause gastrointestinal irritation.
Inhalation: May cause respiratory tract irritation. Chromium (III) oxide is poorly absorbed into the body and, therefore, exists mostly as a "nuisance" dust.
Chronic: Prolonged or repeated skin contact may cause sensitization dermatitis and possible destruction and/or ulceration. Repeated inhalation may cause chronic bronchitis. A review of studies conducted over 100 years showed no conclusive evidence for a cancer hazard among workers exposed to aerosols formed by chromium metal or Chromium (III) compounds. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has concluded that there is inadequate evidence in humans or experimental animals for the carcinogenicity of Chromium (III) compounds. The overall evaluation concluded that Chromium (III) compounds are not classifiable as to their carcinogenicity to humans.
I would guess that the people getting sensitized to it (as a woodworker, I'm drawing some conclusions based on that dust, except saw dust is probably more harmful and more quickly to sensitize - and is also a known carcinogen in chronic exposure) would be those working with it every day, which is what the rest of the narrative suggests.
I don't use either on a day to day basis, just stones, a strop and a vintage waxed linen. re: the croIII, though, you can breathe some of the dust without harm, you can eat it without harm (except in large quantities as mentioned above - it would be expensive to eat, anyway!), and the only harm that occurs through repeated exposure appears to be temporary irritation.
Lead is a low risk, known carcinogen that poses a risk through long term ingestion/inhalation really.
I worked in a chemical plant for years making vinyl. Lead was a big ingredient in the low temp wire and cable industry.
50-100lb bags of pure lead powder dumped into 15ft long blenders and mixed vigorously,,batchers would be covered in dust head to toe, respirators a must.
Mandatory yearly blood tests to check lead levels. Lead in blood levels below a certain threshold, good to go. Too high, off the batch floor for 6 months till the levels lowered through bladder and kidney functions.
Had some guys intentionally wear their masks wrong to get high enough levels to get out of batching for 6 months! Intentionally poisoning themselves to avoid the hot jobs in the summer. :shrug:
Crox falls into the same category of heavy weight/low risk.
Stuff is 5 times heavier than water and pretty tough to make a dust cloud of any significance to your health. Would need to have a blender full of dried powder, running at full with the lid off to generate enough air born material to get into your system. And it would settle out within feet of the blender again so you'd have to really, really try to suck that stuff in..
Precautions do help, but really, low risk items in the grand scheme of life's little dangers.
:beer1:
Airborne lead is usually found in paint, and one of the main reasons behind inhalation of lead.
At any rate, I worry (in theory, I'm more of the belief that you can do things that are a little unhealthful from time to time and not worry about any of it, because we are all terminal!!) more about the potential of lead than CrO III. Not as a single bar, but in the case where you handle any amount of it (as in waste in a bucket, you move it around, you get some dust). As a woodworker, I don't worry much about sawdust even though there's a definitive link to NPG cancer. The link is drawn for certain woods and people who are exposed to high amounts of the dust every day over a long period of time (perhaps decades).
You should see the goofy knee-jerk reaction on the woodworking forums to a cyclone salesman who ran around with a particle counter, and used bright red bold text to convince most people that they were practically working inside a nuclear reactor when woodworking, and that they should buy particle counters and continue to spend money on dust extraction in their shop, and filtration until they didn't register anything on the particle counter. I'm a life long asthmatic, and I find that goofy (i can tell when it's an irritant problem a whole lot sooner than most). People bought it hook, line and sinker, even when they're the types who do most of their woodworking at the keyboard, if you know what I mean (as in 10 parts talking about it on a forum, 1 part doing it in a shop - if they had a recipe). He went so far as to tell us that if we left the dust in our shop, but not airborne, that we could still track it into our house on our shoes and it would eventually become a toxin for someone there. ("I'm just doing this as a service, I'm not making any money" was his statement. Shortly after, he started selling expensive kits to make dust cyclones. It's still a political topic on those forums, and I'm still doing woodworking as an asthmatic with nothing more than a mask, a fan, a couple of vacuums and a door that opens to let the dust out if it really gets to be a problem).
(I am not being totally truthful - there is one situation where chromium oxide causes immediate damage: If you spill it somewhere that isn't a non-porous even surface, you will have a mess that you'll wish you didn't have).
That's how two of the people I know got it, but unlike most of the FHA horror stories, they got acute toxicity applying it, and not in breathing dust from chipping paint or eating the chips.
The other two that I can think of got high lead levels from casting bullets (one as an amateur, and one guy was doing it semi-professionally - both were taking ventilation precautions and wearing rubber glues), and their doctors told them they were done doing that due to unacceptable lead levels in their blood.
Mote people are being poisoned by a McDonalds burger than by lead, but all the stuff around us in some way shape or form seems to be bad for you, don't deny that lead can be bad for you in the right conditions, but so can drywall dust, insulation fibers, pollution in the air how about radioactivity? Sun rays. You have a far greater chance of dying in a car wreck. Are you going to quit driving? This reminds me f the arguments about using WD40 on razors, your going to die! Way I see it we all die, and the timing is not up to you, unless you stick a gun in your mouth and check out. But guys it's just a strop and no one is making you do it. It was a conversation between me and Mike that we like our lead loaded strops, not us trying to poison the world. I reasonably don't think it's safe to even use a straight, but I still do it. Carry in guys please stay in your homes today cause UV Rays will kill you. Tc
Were all living on borrowed time, its what you do with it while your here. I've stared into the face of death once already, and laughed. For I'm happy with the decisions I've made in life, and haven't changed since then.
I am intrigued by the Gold Beetle razor you have there. Typically German made razors will have a stamp on the tang indicating "Solingen" or "Germany," so the word "Manganese" on the back of the tang is something of a mystery. Of course the beetle is an ancient Egyptian motif, also known as a scarab and the scales have a near eastern look to them. My best guess would be this razor was produced in Egypt, or possibly in Germany for sale to tourists in Egypt.
The Karasu question?
Attachment 267853
When I bought this stone it was assigned the designation Shobu Asagi Karasu Tamamoku. On a different thread some questioned the Karasu issue. This photo of it post honing and wet, with clean stone shows arguably, mind you, the 'Crows flying against a darkened sky.' ....I think stones tend to get labelled as a point of interest rather than say a diamonds clarity rating. I do believe we get caught up in the various descriptions. My Ozuku Asagi is different in base colour than this Shobu, but both have a similar descriptor.
The important thing about this photo, is the quality of the shave from the stone. From my limited knowledge, I can say it behaves as it's descriptor suggests, and I am lucky to have a Shobu that is nicely hard, with very fine particles that is so smooth under foot, feedback wise that I got a great shave from the chosen razor a Dovo 6/8 thumb notch. I welcome comments from those who have owned Shobu's that are similar to this one, in my eyes its a beauty. Bob.
Wade & Butcher Anchor razor was tugging just a bit, so off with the lather and rinse. Then a great excuse to hit the Nani 12k, then 50 laps on Roo and Kanayama strops, then onto a long session with slurry, then slowly diluting to water on the Escher Barber's Delight....epic shave followed.:D
Attachment 267978
I know it is hard to say, but how long is a long session?
300 laps, 30 min, 4.78 hours?
For me, once I know it's perfect off the Nani 12k, which usually isn't more than 30-40 laps, a quick inspection under the loupe, then 50 laps on SRD Roo strop, then 50 again on Kanayama.
It's re-tape the razor, generate a nice slurry, and on a 6 x 2.5 stone, I'd say 25-30 minutes, don't count laps, just slowly watch the slurry, hitting the stone with the razor at different angles, starting off heel leading, watch the slurry, X-strokes, watch the slurry, straight back and forth, some sweeping strokes, rinse the razor couple of times, and slowly dilute until clear water.
Then back for another 50 laps on each strop, I like to have a shave just off the stone, but usually then follow up with about 10 laps on a Japanese linen strop board I made with a couple of X marks of CROX....
Here's the board I made, works beautifully and was an uber fun project:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ml#post1489522
Congratulations Frank, I can see that edge from orbit.
MIke
Done Right :)
Sweet Sweet Sweet I love customs that are done right (and many are not)
Balanced, Easy to strop, Welds that lead to a solid even bevel :tu Charlie
Chosera 1-5-10 Nakayama Finish Bam !!!!
http://i.imgur.com/gg33fCz.jpg
Hone on Gents
Charlie Lewis makes wonderful razors, Glen. I'm honored to own one, and it's one of my best shavers!
Two different approaches to touching up a razor.
1st a Thiers Issard, Im seeing if I can maintain this razor indefinitely with diamond pastes and CrOx, so a few laps on 1 and 0.5 diamond spray and my new Mastro Livi loom with CrOx.
Next was my Gotta test razor and Nakayama Kiita with Escher slurry. First time ive used my Jnat with Escher slurry. I raised a medium slurry and worked it until it darkened then washed and raised some more then diluted to clear. Not sure if the base stone kicked up as its pretty hard but I found it harder to raise a slurry than with an Escher. Hopefully someone can give me a heads up in this respect.
Tested both on one side of my mug each, I knew the Thiers would be fine but was intrigued with the Jnat.
The resulting shave was simply lovely, that wonderful combination of keen and smooth. Im going to try this set up with a few different razors to see its repeatable:)
Attachment 268147