Thread: Should I paste the synthetic or the canvas?

Hey everyone; I'm a total noob in regards to stropping and using paste (as you might have surmised based on my thread title).

I am in the process of acquiring some .5 Chromium Oxide paste and I also just received an awesome-looking Tony Miller synthetic strop, and I want to paste one if its surfaces. So, when I paste it, should I paste the synthetic or the canvas?

I would think the synthetic would be good because I could easily wash it off if I needed to. However, it might be bad because the paste might not embed itself in the synthetic surface and might come off easily.

The canvas would be the opposite. It would stay on nicely but would be much harder to remove if for some reason I wanted to get rid of it.

So does anyone have experience with this? Should I just stick with the tried-and-true canvas or try pasting the synthetic material???

The barber who showed me a thing or two about straights said if you use any paste or polishing agent you should put it on the canvas/linen side! That being said, you are going to get a lot of opinions here!

The synthetic side is for daily use not pastes. I doubt any paste would stay on long enough to be useful.

I'm not a fan of pasting linen myself. If pasting anything it should be a hard paddle surface of a very fine paste on a leather hanging strop. Here the abrasive will become embedded into the leather where it will remain useful.

Those who are not fans of pastes always feel they will slightly round an edge where a hone will not. On a firm leather surface with light pressure it is unlikely to round an edge. On hanging leather much mnore likely, on even softer, fuzzier cloth I would think it would be quite easy to round. Yes, you will get a sharper edge for a while at least but I do wonder how it holds up over time.

I hear Keith has used a hard felt material that sounds like a better surface than the usual cotton linen if going to use pastes.

Tony

Why are you pasting anything? Or rather what effect do you hope to have on your blade?

I'm not a fan of pasting any type of hanging strop, but were I to add anything to your setup, I would add the paste to the linen side. The syntietic would at best not hold the paste well, at worst be ruined by the process.

My reason for pasting would be for minor blade touchups every once in a while.

For right now at least, it seems like a decent alternative to investing in other sharpening methods (did I mention I have no money haha), plus I like to keep things minimal if possible. (i.e. the less "stuff" the better)

Thanks for all of the information - keep it comin!

Originally Posted by Tony Miller

If pasting anything it should be a hard paddle surface of a very fine paste on a leather hanging strop.

Did you mean to say "or a very fine paste" or are you talking about a combination?

Yep.....OR a very fine paste on a leather hanging strop.....IF you already have stropping experience AND you have a regular, non-pasted strop for daily use.

Improper stropping on a pasted hanging strop will quickly round an edge. And daily use of a pasted hanger will wear you edge quickly or cause over honing or a wire edge.

I prefer pastes on paddles for normal touchup but the hanging pasted strop is a quick fix right before or during a shave.

Tony