I have a two-sided leather paddle strop from Tony that I've pasted up with 1 micron and .5 micron diamond paste.

The strop itself is great, as are all of Tony's strops, but I haven't had any luck using it to improve my edges.

I use a Norton 4/8K, and straight off the hone I get a smooth, hanging hair test sharp edge. The razors shave well, but I'd like to see just how sharp I can get them with pastes.

When I first got the strop, I followed Tony's directions and rubbed in dabs of paste all over the surface, shooting for about 80 percent coverage. I don't think I put too much on, since I was trying to use as little as possible.

Using this on my razors didn't seem to help. In fact, they seemed overhoned after only a few strokes.

I then followed Lynn's directions on his DVD, putting a generous amount of paste on the strop and rubbing it around to make an even coat. This also produced dull or overhoned edges. I quickly decided that I had too much paste on the strop, so I used a damp paper towel to remove a lot of the paste.

After all this, the strop still doesn't seem to improve my edges. I'm trying to use really, really light pressure on it, and I'm starting to wonder if that isn't the problem. Should I be using just a tiny dab of pressure?

It almost seems like whatever I'm doing now is rounding the edge. I can't see how, since I'm not doing anything dumb like rolling the razor on its edge or anything.

Any suggestions?

Pasted paddles are supposed to be almost idiot proof, so you can imagin how I feel.

Thanks,
Josh