Thread: Rolls Razor Fans

They have their place in the evolution of shaving.

Originally Posted by 32t

They have their place in the evolution of shaving.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. They were introduced in 1927 and made until 1958. The DE razor was introduced in 1904.

For that matter, the Darwin Universal and the Wilkinson Sword Empire were both introduced in the 1930's.

King Camp Gillette was said to have hated the things, as they cut deep into his sales in the poorer parts of America.

They are short bladed, more maneuverable and controllable straight razors. The edge can be tailored to fit the end user, just like any hollow ground straight razor.

In the past, I got lucky and found 2-3 replacement hones and strops for them on eBay. You just have to keep looking. That or looks for a real cheap one that might be parts with a good hone but most of the time, the hone is cracked or just gone from being broke.

Honestly, I think every Rolls Razor ever made is still floating around. Every antiques store and goodwill has a few. Prices range from five bucks to 35. It looks wonderfully made, so nobody ever tossed one out. Goodwills website has them constantly.

I bought several someone had for real cheap, like 10 of them for less than $50. I also got extra blades with the little blade containers they go in. Most every one of them was new but there was one that someone must have just sat there flipping the blade back and forth on the hone. I took it and flipped it against my hand because the adhesive is so old on them, they will come out. The opposite side of the hone was new (of course) and says Made In England on it. This razor set is in nice shape except for what someone did to the hone. Unbelievably the blade looks good but I do have a couple new blades and a couple have been honed down so far, I wouldn't use them.
If you ever have one that looks like this one did, flip the hone over using a little dab of glue (not CA). I used my digital vernier caliper and used the other end to measure depth and got .013" on one side of the one someone played with.

No good.


Opposite side of hone.


No expanation needed.

I am not as extreme as many here but one of the things with the rolls that I wonder about is if I do 100 laps on my hanging strop. How many would that take on the short rolls strop? Just thinking out loud again. I am not going to go down in my basement and measure these exact things.....
Of course the same with the hone.

Originally Posted by 32t

I am not as extreme as many here but one of the things with the rolls that I wonder about is if I do 100 laps on my hanging strop. How many would that take on the short rolls strop? Just thinking out loud again. I am not going to go down in my basement and measure these exact things.....
Of course the same with the hone.

As someone who obsesses over details like this...

I do about 20 strokes on the strop before shaving, and about 20 afterwards, and that keeps that particular blade right where I like it, buttery smooth. It was coticule honed to shave ready. Another is slate honed, and it takes about 40 each time. That blade is keen, and just as smooth. Both blades are about a year in from initial honing, and have been 'refreshed' after three months of daily use. That involves two strokes on the Rolls hone, followed by a longer than typical stropping. The initial edge left by the hone is probably long gone, but the ghostly impression of the original edge remains.

It's hard to compare the rolls strop to a traditional strop, simply because **most** people aren't self aware enough or have the muscle control to have anything approaching the mechanical precision and exact pressure used by the Rolls Razor system, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. Mechanical honing is just on a different level.

The Rolls uses red oxide abrasive compound, lubricated by some sort of grease based leather conditioner. The 'hone' is equally coarse, and is of the petroleum jelly pre-filled type, which smooths it out considerably when refreshed by an application of Vaseline. 60+ years does tend to dry out these types of synthetic hones. The steel used is a soft Sheffield steel that takes an edge fast.

It's really an apples to oranges comparison. I wouldn't want to use that strop compound on a regular straight razor, and ditto for the stone. It isn't the perfect combination but it works 'good enough' to maintain a shave ready edge, and once a blade is bedded in, and self adjusts to that particular razor's hone and strop, it's hard to beat. I would still consider them to be more abrasive than your average mid range stone, but less abrasive than a bevel setter. Without an application of petroleum jelly, they sit at around 600(ish) grit, until they glass over and don't sharpen at all. With, they jump up to a perceived grit in the 800-1000 range, as best I can tell, and work fairly well at refreshing an already sharp edge, provided you only do one or two back and forth strokes, once every few months, or weeks at the earliest, as the manufacturer intended. It's not set at a perfect honing angle. More of a micro bevel angle, so if you do more than that, the hone starts chewing up the edge, which takes way longer to smooth out on a rolls strop, if it even can be.

Would I swap out the stone for an Escher? In a heartbeat, and ditto for the strop, if I could switch to shell cordovan and modern nano particle diamond abrasives. I mean, I actually probably could... but the system Rolls came up with works, and I enjoy using it the way they intended.