Originally Posted by Tony Miller
Joe,
I agree with you on this. If you are working with new razors, already honed a decent barber hone or multiple pasted strop is certainly a viable choice.
Because of limited time and their ease of use I manintain all of my razors with mainly two pasted strops. I send a few out to Lynn once a year if they are not up to snuff when I buy them new or don't have time to work on them and keep them going on pastes.
I use a 4 side with 9.0, 3.0, 1.0 and 0.5 Amplex and a 2 side, leather and balsa with 0.25 on each surface. With this setup I can take most (not all) new, out of the box razors and get them sharp enough to shave. When I have time I sit down with a Belgian, an Escher or a barber hone and hone but mostly it's pastes.
Ray got me started on this path because he said it was easy to learn. It was and I got my first new razor ready on a TI 2 side with 0.5 and TI white paste.
After that I wanted a longer, wider, more versatile strop and well, the rest is history <g> Yes, this is a biased answer but I make paddles because I believe in them.
I do own and occasionally use a Norton if I get nicks or a less than expected eBay NOS find.