Thread: What is the purpose of paste

on a strop?

The paste is abrasive to "touch up" the edge on the razor.

The paste (when a razor is strapped against it) will remove those microscopic bits of metal that get in the way of the stropping motion (and in the way of a sharper blade)

Some paste is abrasive. Some (dovo white paste) is not and is really just for dressing the strop (increasing friction for better edge true-ing). Chromium Oxide at .5 micron grit seems to be the preferred stuff for touching up a blade. Diamond pastes are used a fair bit as well (again, .5 micron seems to be the go to grit for blade touch up.)

Hope this helps.

-Rob

Paste on a strop works much the same way (but much, much finer) as sand on sandpaper-that is to say, it is there to remove metal from your razor's edge.

0.5um Crome Ox is wonderful stuff, so is 1.0 micron diamond paste.

Paste are just an abrasive used to mildly sharpen a blade. They are also IMHO ( some people probably won't like this ) a crutch for bad honing skills. I'm not trying to condemn pastes, I've used them myself. But I can say that my skills in honing increased dramatically when I stopped using them.