James,

I am awed at your ingenuity! What a great idea.

And, your demonstration confirms to me that we do indeed strop differently! But it also seems to confirm the diagonal striation pattern from honing that I did mention (at least with crayons. I'd still like to go all the way and look at my actual razor edges with the microphotographs, but how that will be possible I don't know).

Now I'm tempted to duplicate your experiment using my stropping method and see if there is any difference.


Scott