Abrasive Hanging Strops Users??

How many of you fellow actually use abrasives on hanging strops. I know there were a few threads about abrasives on linen, etc....
I know this was common practice many years ago and even my barber had a "Sharpen"/"Finish" strop on his chair. One component was plain leather, the other coated with a red abrasive.

So, have you experienced any rounding of the edge with normal use or do you take extra effort to keep the strop even more taut than usual? How about the fineness of you abraisives......TI pastes (2 micron maybe), Dovo red, green or black? Chromium?

Do you use it only occasionally like a paddle for refreshing or do you use a mild abrasive almost every shave to maintain a highly polished edge?

I got my own thoughts on this and have experiemtned quite a bit but wanted to hear your experiences first.

Tony

I had pasted a couple hanging strops with Amplex Diamond .5 and .25 but to tell you the truth I used them lying flat on a table. I got good results but I think a paddle or bench strop is the way to go with pastes. If I was going to use them hanging I would keep them as taught as possible.

I'm pretty sure Chris Moss uses them.

I like my pasted hanging strops, one linen with beeswax, chrome on one side and Hand American boron carbide on the other side. I also have amplex .5 on the back side of a leather strop.
I do not use them on a daily basis I use them to refresh, or a few 5-10 swipes after sharpening.
The hanging strops have really earned their keep with smiling and warped blades. I have since learned to sharpen out of the ordinary blades, but prior to learning that, the only way I could get them shaving and non-tuggy was with the hanging pasted strops.
I do pull like Jack La Lanne when using the pasted strops. I have not noticed any rounding of the edges.
Charlie

I use a hanging strop pasted with .5micron and .25micron diamond paste. I pull like Charles Atlas ;) and use the .25micron daily to maintain a really keen edge. I love the results and have not noticed any negatives. I may live to regret it, but for now, I enthusiastically endorse their use!

I have one side of a leather hanging strop pasted with the Dovo Red paste.

I use it infrequently - mostly after the hone (gives a slightly finer, or at least smoother, edge than straight off the 8K) or if a blade needs a minor touch-up.

Never had an issue with rounding edges - I'm always very careful to keep it taut (I pull like Schwarzenegger on a lat machine...)

Personally, I find it quite useful to have if needed. Light pressure and a little bit of velocity (not too much) seems to give a very nice polish, even with the relatively coarse Dovo Red grit.

James.

Tony I use Dovo Red paste on the back of one of my leather strops once about every 2 to 3 weeks to refresh my blade.

Tony, when I first started I used Thiers Issard white paste/wax on the linen side of one of your strops. I was advised to do this by the barber at Trumpers in London, he recommended 6 passes on that side every morning, followed by 20 - 30 on the leather side.

I used it like that for the first 6 months or so, and there was definately metal residue on the linen/paste which got slightly darker every use. It seemed to work fine on all my razors, but then I didn't have any other benchmark or point of reference at the time (or now).

I couldn't possibly draw a definitive conclusion as to the effectiveness, other than that there was definite evidence that metal was being removed. I don't use a linen side at all these days, I prefer to touch up my razors on a coticle or on your lovely pasted paddle every few weeks. Not because I find that more effective, I just prefer to do it that way for reasons unknown.

Sorry if that isn't much help!

Thanks guys, pretty much my finding that if held really taut and not used dailyn it is frairly effective. Sloppy, loose stropping though or frequent use can be counter productive though.

The Trumper's advice is much like many barbers did, once or twice a day to refresh. They of course shaved many faces in a single day so maybe the equivalent of us doing the abrasive swipes every 2 week or so.

I have been using a diamond spray, 0.25 and a 0.5 on a horsehide hanging strop for just a few light passes every few days and had good results. The spray kept the abrasive coating light and non-sticky. Usually I would not use horse for pastes but it seem to stay flat better than un-treated cowhide, is far more dense and I had a good amount of cosmetic "seconds" to play with. Nice texture but to many black stains or old mildew looking spots. For pasting these are idea as you get the benifits of horse and the coloration will quickly be taken over with the pastes and resulting black metal deposits. I may do a run of these at some point.

Many old multi-part strops used a red abrasive, probably a jewelers rouge material and similar to what Damon has described.

Tony

I've got a pasted hanging strop I use occasionally for a touch up with 1.0 Boron and .5 Chromium, works well for me and no problems doing a few light passes with the strop taught.

Also use the pastes on my HMA bench hone, good stuffs :)

Don't think I need to post, Tony knows about my pasted hanging strop fetish :)

PuFF

I don't think I have a problem with rounding edges, but I only use my pasted strop (linen side only} after honing to give a smoother more polished edge and rarely to touch up a blade.
Oh, and I pull my strop like Mark Avery pulling on goat teats!:rolleyes::D

I ordered your latigo/linen 3" strop and it included a free "started".
I had been using the starter with green paste.(not sure what leather this is)

I just keep the abrasive to the center, keep the strop taught and it takes a decently finished edge from "nice" to "so nice I have to make a thread about it in the forum."
Hard to keep track of how often for each razor as I got a bunch of straights like we all do. My supergnome has gone a few shaves since it was last put to the pasted strop.

My first razor was a positively grinning old W&B quarter hollow that lay nowhere near flat on a hone. Naturally I couldn't get the damn thing sharp and started looking around on the internet and found my way to Lynn and this site. This razor got a Lynn-honing in July of 2006 and until about two months ago (when I finally got the knack of honing smilers and warpies on a very narrow hone) the only thing I could use to keep this thing sharp was a hanging linen strop with TI paste on one side and cigar ash on the other. Over the course of that year I probably refreshed it 12-15 times. No rounding at all. I know this because once I learned how to use my 5x1 escher properly and started taking the W&B to it, it didn't take any extra passes for the first refresh. If there had been rounding it would have taken a while to get all the way down the bevel to the edge.

I like this escher so much – so small and handy – that the pasted hanger's pretty much retired. But I won't say the edges I got from it were inferior to the escher's.

A pasted hanger properly used is a great tool, and I think half the talk about rounding is imaginary. It seems to me that with any hanging strop – pasted or not pasted – the piece of leather in contact with the bevel has to flush and flat. If your technique's good enough to strop on a non-pasted hanger and not roll your edge, then it's good enough to strop on a pasted hanger and not round your edge.

Now I may be talking out of my hat as far as the theory goes, but the fact is I've used pasted hangers extensively on a single razor and never saw any rounding.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dylandog

A pasted hanger properly used is a great tool, and I think half the talk about rounding is imaginary. It seems to me that with any hanging strop – pasted or not pasted – the piece of leather in contact with the bevel has to flush and flat. If your technique's good enough to strop on a non-pasted hanger and not roll your edge, then it's good enough to strop on a pasted hanger and not round your edge.

.

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You are probably right on this but I myself often promote the myth. There is plenty a newbie that has wiped the edge right off his razor on a plain strop so for those guys I continue the myth <g>.

Properly used they are a fine tool and it seems now from this thread a fairly popular one too. I will be honest and say my reason for asking this is marketing research. I like them but that is not enough to design a good product, making what works for the masses though, does.

I also want to expore what people like in a smaller, travel size strop.

Tony

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tony Miller

You are probably right on this but I myself often promote the myth. There is plenty a newbie that has wiped the edge right off his razor on a plain strop so for those guys I continue the myth <g>.

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Understood.:) And you're right to advocate caution. I just don't think it's all that different from regular stropping. The strop has to be very taut but it doesn't need to be flat as a board (as if that were possible). It seems to me (I could be wrong) that when stropping regularly on an unpasted hanger, even though the strop has a bit of play along its whole length, the patch between the spine and the edge will be flat at every given moment; the spine itself helps to ensure that by creating a plane. The part of the strop that wants to bend is the part in contact with the spine, since you're leading with it and it's heftier; at least to my eyes that's what seems to be happening.

It's probably worth mentioning that though a bit of pressure is great in regular stropping, with a pasted hanger zero pressure is probably best.

Dylandog,
I am right with you on the flat is not that important. No strop will ever beperfectly flat and ven under light pressure the section between spine and edge deforms a bit and provides 100% contact at the edge. Yes, flat is ideal but one can stary a good bit from theory and still get a good result.

Tony

In one of the old German razor books, linked on nassrasur, the use of pasted strop is advised only when the user has at least 10 years of experience using plain unpasted strop. It may be a wise advice, certainly given from experience.

Maybe 10 years is a tad long of a time, I would wait 3-4 years of experience buildup before using pasted hanging strop... Pasted paddle strop is great tool also...


Nenad

I don't, I do have a loom strop with chromium oxide (Puma paste) but I am not very impressed with it, I use it for travel but feel that your Latigo/genuine linen is better. Only some of my razors seem to benefit from the chromium oxide.

I hope this helps.

I think one consideration in it's use though is the very large surface area of a hanging vs. a paddle strop. Many commercially made paddles are only 1 3/8" x 8" and an average commercial hanging strop today is 2 1/2" x 24". if covered with abrasives I would think very few passes are needed.

In my experiments I am using 0.25 or 0.5 on a 2 1/2" wide strop with a usable length of 18". I'm only taking 2 or 3 up and down passes every shave or two, plus I rotate razors a lot so each one is maybe getting a quick pasting every 4 or 6 shaves. Probably not even the equivalent of a normal pasted paddle stropping but just a quick refresh.

Tony

I have used the TI white paste, the Green and the Red pastes on hanging strops, but mainly as the final touch in the honing process before going to the leather. The results have been hit and miss. Sometimes they have made a razor shave smoother and sometimes sent me back to the hone. The same applies for when I have tried to touch up on all three. I really like the Green and Diamond pastes on the flat bed leather hone if needed for the final touch when honing.

Lynn

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PuFFaH

Don't think I need to post, Tony knows about my pasted hanging strop fetish :)

PuFF

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http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?t=13229

Puff's directions worked great for me. Probably didn't do this link justice but follow it down a ways and you'll get to his HOW TO part.
Thanks again, Puff.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tony Miller

I will be honest and say my reason for asking this is marketing research.
Tony

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Tony,
I thought I smelled the sticky sweet aroma of Capitalism in Action!!!
Good place to research a possible need in the market...
:nj

Dewey,
It easy to design a product I like, but better to see if there is a need or a better way of doing things. if guys are already doing the pasted hanging strop thing it's best to see what already works.
I'm still seeing this as a less is more type tool. Very fine pastes and very few passes. I can see where more could easily send one back to the hone.

Tony

Tony I've noticed it works better on a short strop as opposed to a longer one that way there is a lot less give when held tight. The ones I sell are about 17-18 inches from the top of the handle so you have about a good 15-16 inches of stropping space which works out pretty good.

Damon,
You are right in that longer is not always better. it's the skill of the stropper, not the size of the strop (or something similar <g>). Longer strops, whether pasted or not flex more and can sort of swing or tilt side to side a bit in use, especially if not held really tight.
I've made a few "Monster Strops" but to me anyway they are too long. I am a tall guy with long arms and a standard 24" strop with 15" to 18" of surface is plenty.
Thicker can make tame a longer strop to some extent but it comes at the price of keeping it flat and un-cupped from side to side. Too thin it flexes too much, too thick you can loose contact due to cupping or bowing.
I used to hate the Jemico strop I owened because every one would cup withon weeks. But when using it I did find the area under the razor laid flat since the leather was thin enough to flex. A heavy cupped strop may not fair as well.

Tony

I'm using green paste on my linen. I put a couple passes on it then strop on the horse side. I hold very tight. I've rarely had to hone and I do not seem to have any rounding. My razors do stay prime with this routine.

I'm really not a fan of pastes in general, I have a couple hanging strops that are pasted. I made them from old belt leather but one is canvas/linen. i've tried everything from TI's white paste to Dovo and green chrome oxide. Like Lynn said its hit or miss for me as well. I choose to stick to my stones.

When I want to "touch up" the edges on my razors, I use a Hand American "Old Dog" hanging split-hide strop that came pre-pasted with chromium oxide on one side and boron carbide on the other. I hold it very taut and and give it about 7-10 passes on the boron carbide side and another 7-10 passes on the chromium oxide side, followed up with a regular stropping on my No. 3. I do this approximately once every 6 or 7 shaves, and it works really well. That first shave off the split-hide strop is exquisite; it goes through my beard like a hot knife through butter and the whiskers just seem to get "wiped" off my face.

No rounding that I've noticed, although, a couple of times I've managed to work the edge to the point of actually being a little too sharp and had to bring it back to a more comfortable level of sharpness by doing a little extra stropping on the linen side of my regular strop.

I've only had to use the Norton twice during the past year on my Dovo Best Quality 5/8" (my favorite razor); the rest of the time, I'm just doing touch up on the split-hide. Each of my other razors have only needed an initial honing on the Norton and an occasional few strokes on the split-hide.

Hope this helps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Damon

Tony I've noticed it works better on a short strop as opposed to a longer one that way there is a lot less give when held tight. The ones I sell are about 17-18 inches from the top of the handle so you have about a good 15-16 inches of stropping space which works out pretty good.

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+1 Damon,
FYI Tony,
On the hanging pasted that I made, I have only one split side pasted (.5 at the bottom and .25 at the top of the strop) which makes about 12" of each paste to use. Hope you can visualize what I'm describing.

I would like to see a photo if you could please, and describe how you use it. Do you just select the top or bottom of the strop?

Dewey,
Clever idea. one really does not need the full 18-24" of strop for pastes, especially with such a wide surface area. Splitting them up top/bottom would be very versatile.

Tony

I did the same initially, on the free beginner strop that was included.
Part red area and green area.