Thread: Using the stone as a strop?

I touched up 6 of my razors for shaving today and tried something new.

I used the Norton 8K as a strop after I did about 30 laps of regular honing on it. I added 20 more in a stropping motion. Seemed to work well.

Anyone else do this? How differently do you think it works?

I also used a slurry stone on the Norton 4K for the first time. No way I can tell it made any difference other than being able to really see how the blade touched the stone.

I think you will be creating a bur on your edge. A hone and a strop are not interchangeable.

Originally Posted by Utopian

I think you will be creating a bur on your edge. A hone and a strop are not interchangeable.

At what level do you think that a burr becomes unnoticeable?

So long as you "taped" when you stropped your hone, I have no problem with it.

I have done that before to finish sharpening, but never as a daily maintainence instead of stropping. If for no other reason keeping the stone lapped and wet is more trouble that picking up my strop!

At a certain point the edge would break rather than burr. for the average person [Including myself] would I know?

A drawing stroke, Spine leading is more conducive to creating micro serrations at the edge and much better for Slicing/Cutting style tools like a knife..
A razor is actually a push cutter and normally attains a better edge from an edge leading stroke..

You can use both much like a Japanese stroke but even then you should achieve a more comfortable feeling edge on the face by finishing with a few edge forward laps..

Of course if you are not getting good control from edge leading, then the comparison falls apart, until you perfect the stroke and can watch the edge leading and get a feel for it..

I would at the very least reverse your experiment and try the Drawing stroke followed by the edge leading at the end

This thread brought https://scienceofsharp.wordpress.com...-strop-part-1/ this article to my mind.

Has a little bit on edge trailing vs edge leading strokes. I would echo the fine gentlemen above me and not recommend.

Yup, probably the simplest stone to use, as said after a well set and polished bevel is the key.

Some steel really seem to prefer them or at least work well with them.

Yup. +1 to glen's comment. this type of thing seems to pop up about once a year and it always turns out woth the same people saying the same thing. "If yer gonna do it, watch out fer the burr!"