Thread: Frown on Dovo from Stropping?

Originally Posted by Aerdvaark

Ok, stropping does not remove metal, at all, ever, I got it now.
Thanks for the schooling guys, I think...

Stropping on plain linen and leather won't remove metal. All bets are off if you have put an abrasive compound on any strop. Even then you are removing such a tiny amount of metal it would take a very determined individual a relative dog's age to put a frown in it if ever.

If you want to put a frown in a razor, just take a smiling razor and do straight back an forth strokes on a 1K hone. There are other ways too but it all involves using a hone improperly for the geometry of the particular razor one is trying to hone.

Bob

No way in this lifetime, your children's and their children's lifetime, that stropping will cause a frown on your razor. Sometimes stropping can cause a frown on my face though. Wait, is this a trick question??

I've seen new Dovos that were ground in such a way that they tended to favor a frown being created when they were honed. Basically thinned out in the center of the blade with thicker sections at the toe and heel. So to keep the edge straight, one had to remove more metal from the toe and heel than at the center.

I'm from the School of thought that those frowns were there from day one it's a simple case that all of a sudden you started to notice them, leather and linen will polish and remove metal but definetly not enough to cause a frown a fine polish transfer which takes a long time, I hone many razor and have linen and leather strops that literally see me stropping sometimes 10 or 20 razors in a week with more than a thousand passes and the metal build up is minimal.

Just checked my oldest razor (Dovo Best Quality), which I have been stropping with leather, fabric, and sometimes my own "paste" (actually slurry from a fine Chinese stone) for many years. In the beginning I also honed it like crazy, but this I have not done for years now. There is no frown, it is perfectly straight as far as I can see.

Having said all that, I feel pretty certain that stropping DOES remove metal. It's just so minute that you could do it through a whole lifetime without seeing the difference. One reason I think it does is because my new plain leather strop, years ago, first seemed to turn slightly grayer/darker, and then later a bit reddish, perhaps indicating oxidized iron. It was a very light color when I started. Not saying that's the only interpretation, but I also think that any such rubbing will likely remove something, even if it is just smoothing areas where hairs have microscopically bitten into the blade. Even a slight polish is removal of metal.

Originally Posted by trondsi

Having said all that, I feel pretty certain that stropping DOES remove metal. It's just so minute that you could do it through a whole lifetime without seeing the difference. One reason I think it does is because my new plain leather strop, years ago, first seemed to turn slightly grayer/darker, and then later a bit reddish, perhaps indicating oxidized iron. It was a very light color when I started. Not saying that's the only interpretation, but I also think that any such rubbing will likely remove something, even if it is just smoothing areas where hairs have microscopically bitten into the blade. Even a slight polish is removal of metal.

Yes, can't argue that. In context though, as you say, the amount removed is so minute as to be totally irrelevant in the normal scheme of things. For all practical intents and purposes normal stropping can be considered not to remove metal.

Bob

A "clean" strop should remove little or no metal. But remember that even if we do not intentionally apply abrasives to a strop, it can pick up dust particles from the air and the dust can be rather large abrasives capable of removing metal. The surface of a latigo strop is more porous that some of the smoother types of leather, so it may have some dust particles embedded that are not readily apparent.

I suggest you get a helper to pull your hanging strop to normal taughtness and then check the flatness of your strop from side to side at various positions along the length of the strop. If the leather or cloth is tight in the middle and slack on the edges, the middle will have greater effect on the blade. Over time, this could cause uneven wear. A 3" wide strop is more likely to have such variations in tension than a 2 1/2" strop. Furthermore, those who use a 3" strop tend to use straight strokes rather than an X-strokes, so the blade will contact the same portion of the strop time after time.

Another factor may be that Dovo blades are honed on a convex ground coticule rather than a flat stone. While a convex stone is idea for honing a smiling blade, if the grind already has a slight frown, the convex hone may make the frown worse. Thus, it is possible your blade had a slight frown from the start, but you never checked it against a straight edge.

Next question, is the frown visible on the bevel on both sides? If not, it may be overground near the center as others have commented. I have a Dovo, a Herder, and a Burrell all NOS when I got them, al are overground in one area but only on one side.

Here's the Dovo. You can see that the bevel is much wider at the heel and toe, that's because it has a low spot in the hollow in the center, and that's how much the toe and heel had to wear for the center of the bevel to hit the stones. The other side is fine, a straight even bevel.

These razors can be honed without incurring the wear on the toe and heel, you'll need to use the side or corner of the hone to get into the low area, or a narrow hone, but honing low areas isn't quite what I want on my personal razors so these usually reside in the 'oh well' drawer.

Cheers, Steve

I have a Dovo Ebenholz that I honed up Saturday that has the same heavy bevel at the heel and toe, and a very thin bevel in the middle. I had to work a heck of a frown out of that one. I had a Pearlex that similar issues. In fact, most of the new Dovo's I've touched have some issue or another in this regard. Hopefully I've just had bad luck with them.