Thread: Newspaper v. Linen

Newspaper serves two useful but distinct purposes:

1) substrate for pastes. It's cheap to replace when experimenting with new pastes, avoiding contamination problems.

2) stropping by itself. Used like this it will put a very very fine polish on an edge that is already hair-popping sharp. It doesn't last very long (maybe 200-400 laps) before its polishing ability is gone, but it is cheap and easy to replace.

Because newspaper is so fragile, you can't really pull it tightly enough to create a flat surface - there's always a certain fluffiness to it. What I do to overcome this is to strop really really fast, much faster than when I'm stropping on linen. I place the razor down on one end and just flick it towards the other end. The air trapped between the layers of paper can't get out fast enough, so the razor just sort of floats across on this cushion. Then I place the razor on the other end and flick it back. There seems to be a definite correlation between the speed of the flick and the sharpness of the resulting edge. When the newspaper gets this shiny look to it, and the paper is lying flat on the hone and has lost its fluff, then it's time to replace it.

I don't really use newspaper for stropping anymore, except for playing with abrasives. Ash on newspaper is interesting, and I wouldn't use the 0.1 micron diamond paste on anything else. I can't maintain an edge on bare newspaper, so the only way to keep an edge like this is to re-hone every day or two and restrop on newspaper to get the edge back. I did this for awhile but eventually the novelty wore off. 0.1 micron diamond helps extend the life of the newspaper a bit, but it's very slow and loads up quickly as well. Nowadays I don't bother trying to get any sharper than the linen can maintain.

I always roll up the newspaper to create a flat firm base. This way I don't have to worry about the edge rolling over. And I'm just plain lazy and this doens't take more than 10 seconds.

Guus