Thread: Barber rolled edge Nooooooo....

Originally Posted by DaveW

There's a reference to iwasaki saying that one of his razors was used for almost 1100 shaves without honing, and he states that he wasn't boasting about his razor's durability, but rather it was in the context of using a good quality linen along with the razor.
The other part of that equation is shaving with the razor near flat on the face to preserve the edge. He mentions that in his book also.

I haven't seen any modern linens that are similar in their ability to step up an edge vs. the good vintage linens (and those good vintage linens don't get black because they don't have an abrasive in them to my knowledge). Depends on how many hunderd razors cross their path.

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

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Well, by saying those linens don't get black, I mean that by the average user's use of them. I guess I've probably got about 5000 strokes on my linen, and no appreciable change in color. Some of the vintage linens I've seen that have little wear on the strop are blacked out in the middle of the linen. I don't know if they came like that or if someone put strop paste on them and caused them to cut fast.

My linen gets black, and I do not put anything on them. Its just the dirt from the blade. left over residue from the last shave? dust? swarf from the last hone?
Not a clue what it actually is, but it does build up over a long enough time.

Originally Posted by Magpie

My linen gets black, and I do not put anything on them. Its just the dirt from the blade. left over residue from the last shave? dust? swarf from the last hone?
Not a clue what it actually is, but it does build up over a long enough time.

I can't imagine what it would be other than metal. Unless you're using a silver razor and tarnishing it!

There's always a week of shaves between when my razor comes off of a hone and when it sees a linen, but I just looked on ebay and none of the old strops that have the same type of linen I use (there's only two) have any metal on them, either.

Some strop compounds claim to use talc, but the patented formulas that I've seen for strops sometimes don't have anything.

Originally Posted by DaveW

Well, by saying those linens don't get black, I mean that by the average user's use of them. I guess I've probably got about 5000 strokes on my linen, and no appreciable change in color. Some of the vintage linens I've seen that have little wear on the strop are blacked out in the middle of the linen. I don't know if they came like that or if someone put strop paste on them and caused them to cut fast.

My Kanayama linen is darkened in the work area. It has no compound on it.
My home made canvas one loaded with Dovo white is quite black tho it's done a fraction of the work of the Kanayama.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

My Kanayama linen is darkened in the work area. It has no compound on it.
My home made canvas one loaded with Dovo white is quite black tho it's done a fraction of the work of the Kanayama.

My friend Oz is one of many that I consider a good friend! And one who has more experience and expertize than I will ever have and when he or one of those others speak I listen and I listen very closely

Originally Posted by onimaru55

My Kanayama linen is darkened in the work area. It has no compound on it.
My home made canvas one loaded with Dovo white is quite black tho it's done a fraction of the work of the Kanayama.

Having had the kanayama linen (on an 80,000 strop), there's definitely not much similarity between it and a vintage linen. I haven't had any other modern linens, they all look like they're relatively untreated, which isn't what I'm looking for in a linen after using vintage linens, and...well, when you can get vintage linens fairly inexpensively, I don't know what modern one I'd buy that would get the same bang for the buck.