Newspaper for smoothing edge..

As you all may recall, I recently posted that I've shaved with the first razor I've honed myself. I also noted that it was a little "rough," and the advice here was to stay away from the polishing stone for a few more shaves and let the roughness work itself out through stropping.

Well, this morning I stropped it about 150 times on a newspaper and then 50 on leather, and that really softened the edge up quite a bit. I was shocked at the difference it made! I still don't think I'd classify it as "wicked sharp," but it was an effortless shave that was very smooth with no irritation whatsoever. I'm definitely happy!


I know newspaper has been discussed here before, but I'd like to throw in one more vote for a cheap way of getting just a little bit more out of an edge.

Newspaper works pretty good if the edge is really close. But, realistically, it is somewhere in the range of .1 micron in terms of abrasiveness. That means that it can do some polishing but is not going to remove a lot a metal. So, if you are looking to have more impact, then you may have to use 0.5 or 0.25 diamond paste. I usually follow the .25 diamond paste with newspaper just to polish the edge a little more.

There are a number of cheap abrasive compounds, like Mother's aluminum wheel polish and different types of ash (wood fire, cigar, volcanic).

I think the progression might go; wheel polish - fine, ash - finer, newspaper - finest

But that's just an educated guess, could be wrong.

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Originally Posted by netsurfr

Newspaper works pretty good if the edge is really close. But, realistically, it is somewhere in the range of .1 micron in terms of abrasiveness. That means that it can do some polishing but is not going to remove a lot a metal. So, if you are looking to have more impact, then you may have to use 0.5 or 0.25 diamond paste. I usually follow the .25 diamond paste with newspaper just to polish the edge a little more.

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That's interesting. Steve, did you mean 1 micron rather than a tenth of a micron? Where did you find the info on newspaper's abrasive equivalent?

I've used newspaper and it gets a +1 from me as well. I'm planning on rubbing some dry chromium oxide powder on some newspaper to give that a try, but haven't yet.

Chris L

It seems to be the black ink that's abrasive, not the paper, since areas with a lot of black on them (B/W photographs, etc) tend to work faster than text, and color photographs tend to not polish much at all. Black newspaper ink is made from soy oil and carbon black which is about 0.08 - 0.12 microns in size. Experimentally, newspaper seems to give about the same finish as 0.1 micron diamond, except the diamond is faster.

Chromium oxide also works well on paper. When the chromium oxide wears out just replace the paper and repaste. As when pasting leather a little goes a long way.

The wonderful thing about experimenting with newsprint is that the price is right and it's readily available and plentiful.

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Originally Posted by CloseShave

The wonderful thing about experimenting with newsprint is that the price is right and it's readily available and plentiful.

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But you have to be careful not to get distracted reading the stories while you're tossing sharp metal about

After reading about this on these forums I tried it and I must say, the newsprint really is amazing. Once I get my razors where I like them, I give them 50 passes on the news paper every couple weeks and it seems to keep the edges in tip top shape.

-80s