Thread: Straight Razors Dull Despite Little Use

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

He is in the position to be of the most help to you since he can give you hands-on in person training and show you why that's right. I'm still sending you the love (philos) not casting you away. That is why I'm telling you to ask your teacher

He doesn't even use a canvas strop, he uses this weirdly shaped antique coticle (which apparently has similar properties of causing micro-convexity near the apex.) I did ask him about this, his reaction was essentially "they do the same thing I think ¯\_(ツ)_/¯". He doesn't have some sort of structure that he has been reinforcing by doing this as a job for decades, he's just a dude who likes straight razors and wanted to learn to get good at sharpening them, similar to me but he's far more into it.

At this point more than anyone I'm following in the footsteps of scienceofsharp (which my guy also told me to read through thoroughly, not just this forum,) I think I have a decent method at this point. Essentially, starting from a razor with good geometry but a very dull blade:

* Hone each side of the razor on 1k until it no longer appears visible under direct bright light with 10x loupe (or if I can't trust my eyes, raise a burr.)
* Do some back and forth strokes while easing off on pressure. Finish with some edge-trailing strokes on both sides.
* Move onto 4k, lighter pressure this time, edge trailing the entire time, similarly ease off on the already very light pressure as I'm moving onto the 8k.
* Same thing on 8k, this time extremely light pressure.
* 10-20 back and forth laps on the pasted strop with ~100-200 grams of pressure.
* ~20 back and forths on the cloth side of my strop with the same pressure (probably canvas)
* Exactly the same thing on leather strop.

This seems like a strong coherent and evidence based method I can follow, which is very similar to the method my guy taught me with the exception of a canvas strop instead of finishing stones. As I will likely not have to set a bevel any time soon, unless I accidentally destroy one of my razors, probably only the lsat 3-4 points will be tested any time soon.

Pasted strop seems to have solid results without putting tape on the spine, just taking it bare to the canvas strop, I'll shave test with that later this week. I'll remember to tape it if I have to go back to the 8k.