Thread: Honing/Stropping

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

In short, I'd go along with that.

Bob

Some people just strop the daylights out of an edge right after it is honed and live in the sweet spot.

Originally Posted by BobH

In short, I'd go along with that.

Bob

This is where I sit.

When a blade is fresh off any one of the finishing stones I have, I can generally tell by the feel during the shave which stone it was honed on. But after 3 to 5 shaves they become more uniform and difficult to distinguish from one another.

I've always presumed that is the strop working it's magic. And Robert William's explanation is more or less the same conclusion I came to after looking at the close up scanning electron microscope photos posted on The Science of Sharp that detail what stropping does to the edge.

So the "fingerprints" of a certain hone diminish over time, a short time I might add. Are we chasing the edge that feels like the "sweet spot" coming from the stopping leather? What I'm hearing/experiencing is that a synthetic/jnat/escher/coticule/etc.. edge will all become close to the same if not the same after a few stropping sessions.

After only one good proper stropping. The metal removed by the leather is so minimal that it takes a long time to see much difference, this s the same on linen, it does have an abrasive quality. Any 2 objects will wear if rubbed together. So what do you want to know? Stropping is good for shaving, period. Now f your cutting vegetables no. Tc

Actually the strop works very well on any knife, EDC/kitchen/utility/etc. I would not, however, use a razor strop for anything except a razor...

Silica is the most abundant mineral in the world, comprising over 50% of the material in the earth's crust. It is found nearly everywhere, including in tissue of living organisms. Thus, when we strop on fabric made from cotton or linen or on leather from cattle, horses, kangaroo, etc. we are stropping on materials that contain silica. Some people strop on the palm of their hand; your skin also contains silica. Even if we strop on a purely synthetic fabric such as polyweb or synthetic leather, it will soon pick up silica particles from the dust in the air. It is the microscopic silica particles that polish the steel when you strop.