Thread: To Paste or not to paste...that is the question

I have had no luck with a pasted strop...edges are worse...go figure. Been using the felted wool strop with diamond spray on one side and the green stuff on the other side....haven't touched them in years.

Stone and Steel ,,,,,,,

I don't use pasted strops often, only when I'm lazy and I want to use a particular razor.

I saw a post on the "Griffon Strop Aide", which is essentially a lead bar that treats the cloth part of the strop, or the leather, by imbedding lead into the strop.

I mentioned it, was Tom (aka Sharptonn) who was the OP, big thread followed, and he sent around some cloth strops and some lead bars that he had prepared, just rub the lead bar into the cloth part of the strop, takes a few times to really get it in there, and believe it or not, it really brings the edge back quite nicely.

Obviously prior to shaving you rinse the blade, but it's very old school, and frankly, it's old school because it works.

One of the other aspects of using the lead strop which is a side benefit, you want your razor polished up nice and shiny? All the soap residue, water spots etc., that can build up - a few laps on the lead strop and they're gone.

When I refresh a razor, to then go to paste IMO just cancels the last stone you've used, and if you're finishing on a Coti, J-Nat, or Escher, you're essentially not experiencing the stone, but the paste. The lead strop just nicely polishes and mellows the razor, and if you need a refresh, I find the results vastly superior to Crox or Diamond.

Just my opinion...whatever floats yer boat....

For me, it's whatever the razor needs. I used to use crox all the time, now hardly ever, but on occasion I use a hard bench strop made from tightly woven wool and crox for 5 or 6 round trips to polish the razor up and remove any straggling wire hair and then back on my Jnat for another 10 very light passes. I've found it necessary on 2 razors I own out of 30+ so far.

In the past, I used crox all the time, and it was my favored touch up tool. However, after reading all these accounts of shaving without using a pasted strop, I kept at it on my hones until I started getting great shaves without the pasted strop and I do that today... Except for those 2 razors that won't play nice. In fact, one of them would not hone properly on my Jnats... it was sharp, but not as uber sharp as I prefer. I stayed with it for hundreds and hundreds of laps, but no go. Then one day, just before I was going to give up, I thought, why not give it a few laps on a Shapton 16K for giggles. Sure enough, that got the edge up where I wanted it.... but it was a tad.... uhm..... hard to describe, but it just didn't glide through the beard the way I like it.... 5 laps on hard wool/crox, 10 super lite laps on my big Jnat and I was in shaving heaven....

I found that for me, reading a translation of "Honing Razors and Nihonkamisori" By Kousuke Iwasaki, was both interesting and helped me a lot in my search for the ultimate edge. It's still a work in progress, but I *am* making progress... in fact my old edges aren't good enough anymore..... <sob>

In the end, it's about a close comfortable shave... I really don't care how I get there, whatever it takes is what it is.


Regards

Christian

I've used both CrOx and diamond spray.

I haven't really used a single razor long enough to need a pasted refresh, as I have brought them back to the hones as my skill develops to put a better edge on them. I have finished on diamond spray with good results.

So here are my thoughts. Is a spray/paste needed? Not really, especially if you have a 12k that you can use like a barber hone. I have read that newspaper works like a pasted product, but how it compares to crox/diamond spray, I couldn't say.

A pasted strop is just a furtherance of stropping, much like different strop materials, will deliver different edges, linen, nylon, different leathers, and finishes.

A lot depends on the stropper and what you are after on an edge, not everyone is looking for the ultimate edge.

No question, that stropping on linen and leather can change an edge, improvement is dependent on the stropper. The same goes for paste.

Paste can keep a razor at a high shaving indefinitely. It’s kind of like paint finishes, everybody has their favorites, and then, some don’t even wash their cars and trucks…

Sharptonn - Got it. I will round mine just like yours and try it. I cleaned off my linen side but there is just a hint of CrO on it still. Just a very light green tint. Do you think that will affect it?

Originally Posted by Johntoad57

Sharptonn - Got it. I will round mine just like yours and try it. I cleaned off my linen side but there is just a hint of CrO on it still. Just a very light green tint. Do you think that will affect it?

Tom also wisely taped all parts of the lead piece so your fingers actually never touch the lead - which was excellent thinking on his part.

The only part that is exposed is the rounded part that contacts the strop.

Couple of lateral rubs on some sandpaper to rough it up each time, and it easily goes onto the strop.

Thanks for the heads up Phrank. I completely forgot about the duct tape!

Originally Posted by Phrank

Tom also wisely taped all parts of the lead piece so your fingers actually never touch the lead - which was excellent thinking on his part.

The only part that is exposed is the rounded part that contacts the strop.

Couple of lateral rubs on some sandpaper to rough it up each time, and it easily goes onto the strop.

The lead intrigues me. I have CrOx on a paddle that I used to use after honing and before linen and leather. I also have a felt hanging strop that I treated with some optical grade cerium oxide, and I used to use it daily, and the. I got a new strop that rapidly became my favourite and the rest is history. I may have to get the lead out on this one.
:-)