Thread: Can you maintain on pasted hard strop forever?

Some of you may recall an experiment I've been doing, maintaining my razors on a lapped oak strop pasted with chrome ox. (The theory being that I would avoid the gradual convexing of the edge that occurs when you paste compliant strops such as hanging leather or linen). It's been maybe a month now and I haven't touched a barber hone, nor is there any sign of the dreaded convexing. It seems that the green paste is more than just a smooth finisher, it's aggressive enough that I don't need the barber hone at all.

Can I keep going like this forever? Or is there some weird limitation to backhoning that will cause me to go back to the barber hone eventually?

I missed your original thread so I apologize if you've stated this info already, but how often are you stropping on chrome? Is it everyday or just when you feel the edge needs a little touch up?

As for your question I don't have a definitive answer for you. I think the general consensus is that pastes will keep you going for quite awhile, but eventually you'll need to "hone on stone". The rounded bevel argument is usually stated to back this up. However I have been reading some posts lately where members believe that some rounding is not a bad thing; as long as you strop well your razor will provide close and comfortable shaves for a long time. Hopefully some of those members will chime in with their thoughts.

BTW - I'm a chrome fan, so I do believe it it's power!

Originally Posted by Johnny J

Some of you may recall an experiment I've been doing, maintaining my razors on a lapped oak strop pasted with chrome ox. (The theory being that I would avoid the gradual convexing of the edge that occurs when you paste compliant strops such as hanging leather or linen). It's been maybe a month now and I haven't touched a barber hone, nor is there any sign of the dreaded convexing. It seems that the green paste is more than just a smooth finisher, it's aggressive enough that I don't need the barber hone at all.

Can I keep going like this forever? Or is there some weird limitation to backhoning that will cause me to go back to the barber hone eventually?

The only authority on this is your face.

CrOx on oak or hard balsa should maintain a blade for a long time.
Flat stable fruit wood, oak or hard balsa will not round the edge the
way a pasted strop will and that is a good thing too. The limit is likely
at the point that the CrOx needs refreshing although a very light sanding
followed by fresh CrOx should do it when a simple CrOx refresh does not.

I can see why a professional honemaster would avoid a wood strop/hone
but for a single face shaver it will do a fine job for a long time. Eventually
you may want to touch the blade to a barber hone for the same reasons
that a pyramid honing strategy works for many.

I agree with the other posters (to date).

Long time...yes
Forever....no

Originally Posted by Johnny J

Can I keep going like this forever?

AFAIK you can go indefinitely assuming no chips or dings, but "indefinitely" doesn't equal "forever", it just means that we haven't been able to demonstrate a real upper limit.

I think you could probably go forever on a hardwood paddle. I've done my own experiments where I took a razor and stropped it over a thousand laps on a chrome-oxide board (poplar) and detected no rounding or ovalling - a single lap on a fine flat hone left hone marks all the way to the edge. It doesn't prove that you can do this forever though; but it does mean that the effort to push the experiment beyond this is greater than my continued curiosity :-)

I also think you could probably do it even on a leather-covered paddle. Though you will get some convexing the blade should only convex to a certain point and then stop. The big danger with a leather covered paddle (and I suspect the basis for the claim that paddles only get you so far before you need to hone) is that if you put pressure on the razor you can increase the rounding very quickly, and then subsequent normal (i.e. lighter) strokes won't hit the edge as readily; do this often enough and you'll probably need to hit a hone. This is easier to do if the paddle is heavily pasted, because there's more resistance to the blade's passage and hence more of a tendency to use more pressure yourself.

There's a thread in the stropping forum where a member maintained his razor with a weekly touch-up on a leather covered paddle and it went on like this for months without detectable degradation, until he finally got bored with the experiment and called it off. It's possible that he simply didn't carry the experiment far enough however - forever is a very long time after all, and boredom is understandable.

Probably the best evidence for this proposition was a member here a few months ago that had been maintaining his one razor for four years with a leather-covered paddle, and finally decided to get his razor honed because all the honing talk around here convinced him he needed it - despite the fact that by his own admission his razor was still shaving fine. So there's at least one experimental data point that four years of use is not too much for a paddle to handle, but it's only the one guy so who knows how generalizable his experience is.

I agree with the other guys, it'll keep you going a long time but not forever.

I have a denim flatbed hone with diamond spray on it, and that'll keep my razors in good shape for months, but I've had to touch up a few of the older ones on the hones since I started using it. My more recent purchases are still going strong, but the first couple of razors I got have had to make a trip to the hones.

I edited the thread title and changed it to 'can you ...' instead of 'can u ...'
I'd hate to see texting spelling make its way into the forum.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I edited the thread title and changed it to 'can you ...' instead of 'can u ...'
I'd hate to see texting spelling make its way into the forum.

Sorry. You're right, awful habit, that. Texting on those tiny screens forces one to send messages that look like "meet 4 drink L8R 2nite @ bob's?" Horrible.

Anyway, looks like all of you are right yet again. Shortly after starting this thread, one of my razors DID get beyond my ability to restore it with the pasted paddle. What happened to it was kind of weird. It didn't convex, or get dull, exactly. It still caught the standing hairs on my arm & felt very grabby, but it just seemed to take too much pressure to cut them. It shaved well, but again took too much pressure. Too bad I don't have an electron microscope in my bathroom to see what's really going on.

30 laps on the Swaty set things right--the razor effortlessly popped arm hairs again after that.

I'm not sure I'm saving any metal by not touching up on the Swaty and the paddle each time. It took 30 laps to fix the damage from a month's worth of shaving. It takes 5 laps to touch up on the Swaty.

I do like the paddle, though. The chrome ox gives me less irritation than shaving right off the Swaty, and the paddle gives me no convexing, compared to a pasted soft strop.

I guess it stands to reason that the paddle wouldn't last forever. If it did, barbers would not have bothered buying barber hones, they'd have just used scraps of oak and rouge, which was both cheap & readily available.

I know this is an old post, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't go on forever stropping on Cr Ox forever. CrOx is an abrasive just like a honing stone, except finer. As long an you strop regularly you will remove just enough material from the blade to keep it perfectly sharp. The only way you could go wrong with this method is if don't strop often enough and let the blade go dull, in which case it would take a very long time to resharpen on CrOx, since it is so fine and cuts slowly.

Yes it's an old post and it's come up before a few times.

The consensus has been, using a pasted strop is viable for long term use if you catch razor early on. Part of the reason most cite is the rounding of the edge caused by using a flexible strop however the motion of the stropping action is another factor. I have bench strops for my pasted use and I still would never consider them for very long term use.

Like they said a few years ago, you can use the strop for quite some time but eventually you need to use the hone. So eventually you'll need the hone anyway so why not get one and just use that? That's the classic way and I think the better one.