Thread: Poll: How many use the linen side?

I noticed in another thread someone mentioned that the linen/canvas/cotton can sharpen a dull razor and dull a very sharp razor. In my experience I have found that while the leather side definitely improves my razor edges after honing, the cotton side definitely removes sharpness such that I can't get it back without hone touch-up.

Perhaps I suck at linen technique, who knows. But I am curious how many people use it and how many skip it.

Game on!

There is a missing variable in this equation, the linen itself. Different linens can produce markedly different results. I find the least useful one to be the rather coarse cotton one that can be had from Tony, his genuine linen on the other hand is very very nice and works quite well for me. The linen on my Illinois 827 strop is very plastic like but it too seems to work quite well. A vintage strop I got has a sort of black linen but it turned out to be made of leather with a pattern pressed into it and then coated in some sort of black stuff.... unfortunately, I was unable to use it as it cracked up as soon as I attempted to flex it the slightest... this was after attempting to soften/clean it. The Dovo linen is also supposed to be quite good but I've not ordered one yet to try myself.

I tend not to use linen on a freshly honed razor but when the edge starts to dull slightly, I'll bring the linen into the equation.

Regards

Christian

Perfect pre-stropping mid shave. Cleaning the edge first on linen helps. I have a slight abrasive on my linen so it does double duty as a honing compound.

I'm not a big fan of the plasticky Illinois stuff, but vintage linen and tony's stuff works very well. My first strop was a Jemico, and I didn't realize till after I gave it away how much mileage I had been getting out of that linen. Denim works surprisingly well too, but it doesn't wear very well, and it's flimsy so it needs to be on a paddle. One nice thing about denim though is it's soft enough that you don't seem to need the leather.

I too dislike the plastic-like linen on my Illinois strop, mainly because I now have a TM strop with genuine linen on it and find that it just 'feels' better. (I hate the sound that my Illinois makes with my full hollow stainless Dovo)


However, both of them seem to function fine and I have not noticed any ill effects from using them, which I do every time I strop.


Ivan

Originally Posted by mparker762

tony's stuff works very well

+1 TM's genuine linen. I love it!

That term "Sharpen" seems to be getting thrown about a lot lately in reference to strops, and I think that might be a little confusing to some of the new guys here.... Strops will refresh/maintain an edge but it takes a stone to sharpen one....
I use my linen sides every day in the pre-shave stropping and love the results I get....
The whole theory behind the linen was to "ruff" up the edge so the the leather could smooth it out better, I don't know if that really true or not, maybe one of the guys that has a microscope can take some progressive pics of the edge as they strop and we can all learn something here...

I love my linen (well canvas) side from Tony. I wanted to test it without using linen at all for a couple weeks, and I found I was getting a noticeable difference in shave quality.

Then I used linen side again and it was back to beautiful close shave with less irritation. maybe I just like the sound it makes too...

erik

TM linen for me as well.

i use a leather/linen strop like this one
http://www.classicshaving.com/catalo...944/196033.htm
and i find the linen helpful for cleaning the edge and straightening any rough patches before i switch to the leather side. the key is don't press hard. if you don't keep it light, the linen side will mess up the edge a lot quicker than the leather side, at least in my experience.