Thread: a novel(?) approach- applying chromium oxide

my new 3" Tony Miller strop arrived saturday, the same day my little packet of chromium oxide came from chrisl (big thanks to both). after reading Josh Earl's great photo essay on pasting i decided that i would try pasting one side of the smooth cotton component. in my year plus of straight experience i have never ventured into the land of pastes. i always wanted to become proficient with my set up of dmt 1200 plate/belgian blue/coticule. for the most part i have had pretty good success with attaining comfortable shaves straight off the coticule but i still have a few razors that i havent been able to get to cross that finish line of smoothness; hence my current foray into chromium oxide.

when approaching pasting the strop i had two worries: over pasting and not getting a uniform coating. i ended up making a water/chromium oxide slurry using 5ml of water and about half a asprin worth of powdered chromium oxide. sucked it up in a plastic pipette and put it in a new 5ml plastic cologne atomizer. i removed the cotton component and masked off the leather with a piece of cardboard and sprayed the slurry. the result was very satisfying. it layed down a uniform thin coat of paste. after spraying i gently rubbed it in with the ball of my hand. not sure if anyone has tried this method of application just seems to work well for me. i would think that leather conditioner is thin enough to use in the same mannor...

i touched up three razors that i had had a problem getting comfortable shaves with straight from the coticule. each razor i gave 20 round trips on the paste and 80 round trips on the new latigo strop. lathered up and gave each a bit of face time. two of the razors produced excellent smooth shaves, the other one was much better but seems like it could benefit from few more passes.

all in all- very impressed with the chromium oxide from chrisl (via hand america). like wise very impressed with tony's fine craftsmanship. glad that i finally made the leap and now i know what all the fuss is about.

cheers,
ryan