I was unsure if this should be posted in honing or stropping. Where my uncertainty exists is between the finished edge coming off of a finished hone and what a strop does to that scratch pattern over time.
I did find this on Robert Williams Custom Straight Razors website.
It’s hard to imagine that rubbing very hard steel across leather will actually do much of anything to it, but the effect of stropping a razor on an untreated leather strop prior to shaving is evident when you shave. So what’s the deal? What does stropping do to the edge? And the answer is that it burnishes the steel and will actually remove the steel, albeit very slowly and in a very non-agressive fashion. If you take a super clean piece of very hard steel and rub the hell out of a piece of leather, it will blacken and that’s the metal being removed through the burnishing action. Use some very light colored leather and you’ll see the color turning in pretty short order.
The more you strop, the more wear there is on the steel and after some time, what scratch patterns on the edge existed after honing get completely worn away. This is what many notice to be the “sweet spot” in their honing cycle when their razor seems to improve in shaving quality with each subsequent shave for a while before eventually possibly degrading again. Once the edge has been really well burnished to the point where there is as close to a zero radius bevel and as close to zero deviation of the straight line edge, a razor is as smooth and sharp as it’s ever going to be.
You can definitely see the polishing/burnishing effect of stropping on the edge under high magnification. At the micro level, the burnishing wears away the high points of the edge first, removing the tiny “teeth” in a good, gentle fashion and that’s important because the “teeth” or “fin” that we’ve come to think of as the razor’s edge tend to be uneven, brittle and easily broken off. Breaking them off with use is not good because that leaves micro-level flat spots. Worn away through the burnishing action of leather, the flat spots are minimized to the greatest degree and the edge is both stronger and smoother because of that.
If this statement holds true, could one draw the conclusion that the finish hone "feel" only lasts until the strop removes its fingerprint and, per the statement above, finds “sweet spot” in their honing cycle when their razor seems to improve in shaving quality with each subsequent shave for a while before eventually possibly degrading again.
I have noticed that razors which I received honed from others on various finish hones may feel a bit harsh for the first few shaves only to become smoother/softer as it is used/stropped.
What are your opinions?
Rich