Thread: Pastes on coticuled edge

Hey all,

So I just have a quick question. Will diamond pastes significantly improve an edge finished on a coticule? I'm wondering because last night I shaved with a razor I finished on my coticule (no pastes), and tonight I shaved with a razor that I had professionally honed (finished on a Maruichi Nakayamai). The one I had done professionally was much smoother. I don't feel like dishing out hundreds for a japanese finishing hone though.... Do you think using pastes (I would use 0.5 diamond, then 0.25 diamond, then maybe chromium oxide to smooth out the edge) would make a big difference on a coticule finished edge? I just want a nice smooth super sharp edge like the one I sent out.....

I'm probably getting a tony miller 4 sided paddle strop with the pastes for Christmas, so I want to know if it's worth looking forward to! Thanks for the help,

Dave

There's the billion dollar question.

During my first few honing months, I went through a pasting phase. (Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against it) I used Chromium Oxide on a loom strop, and got fantastic results. Sometimes...
I have never encountered anything else that could so dramatically improve the edges I honed at that time. They were -still are actually- finished on a coticule.
What I didn't like about the CrO, is that the longevity of the effect was not much longer than 2 shaves. (Your mileage my very well vary on that.) Sometimes I could reawaken the edge once by another CrO stropping session.

In the mean time, I have bought a Nakayama. It wasn't the instant epiphany I'd expected it to be.
Slowly I got better at honing. It doesn't really matter so much whether I finish on the Nakayama or the Coticule. Both are smooth. Smoother than my face bothers about. But if a razor is not keen enough, it will pull at the whiskers, provoke me to use more pressure, push me to do too much shaving strokes. And then I end up hurting myself.

Sharpening a razor with hones has a lot to do with chasing keenness. The bevel planes are straight, hence to make a razor keener, you need to remove a thin layer of steel off the entire bevel side. Every time you move up to a finer hone, that becomes exponentially more difficult. It literally means that you can leave keenness behind, and (depending on your hones) never be able to make up for it on the next hone. The final result is defined by how much you left behind. I believe, in that respect, Shaptons are more forgiving, because they are fast and able to some extent to pick up what was left behind. While slow naturals, such a the Coticule with water, the Chinese 12K and Nakayamas, might be more forgiving to an inconsistent stroke, but they don't really compensate for neglected keenness at the previous stage.

Pastes don't have that disadvantage. They can convex the bevel planes, and by doing so, they directly affect the keenness of the very edge. However, I believe that they form the cutting part of the edge by drawing out a bur. Nothing wrong with that, but if you need to do a lot of pasting to achieve good sharpness, that bur is going to be large. And that bur doesn't have the same sturdiness as the original hardened steel. Depending on you beard type, that could be an issue. There's only one way to find out.

Bart.

The simple answer to your question is "yes". I finish on a coticule followed by a 4-sided paddle strop with Dovo red (3-5 micron), Dovo black (1-2 micron), chromium oxide (0.5 micron) and 0.25-micron diamond paste. There is a dramatic increase in smoothness and sharpness with the pastes. If I were you, I would drop the .5 micron diamond because it is the same size, but a rougher shape, than the chromium oxide. After I started using the pastes, I also bought a Chinese 12K but I don't use it because it adds nothing to the effect of the pastes and, because it is very slow, requires more work than I am willing to put into it. I also don't agree that an edge achieved with paste is less durable than an edge achieved with hones. Bart believes that sharpening with pastes forms a cutting edge by drawing out a burr. I understand why he thinks that: honing with the edge forward drags the removed metal towards the spine and leaves it on the hone while honing with the spine forward drags the removed metal towards the edge where it can create a burr. However, I think that the assumption that stropping on paste has the same effect is unjustified. All the microscope photos that I have seen of pasted edges show that the paste has a smoothing effect; none of them show the formation of a burr.

Great posts and a big thank you to the experienced posters who make it easier for us inexperienced
str8 users to better understand the technical aspects of honing,pastes,stropping,etc.Even if the posters don't necessarily agree on the finer points,it helps a great deal to hear your thought processes.

In many instances, I utilize either .5 diamond spray or chromium oxide after coming off either the Escher or the Nakayama stones. I have also done this after coming off the 16K Shapton Glass Stone. Primarily this makes the sharp razor a smoother shaver. This practice has been very consistent with virtually all razor brands that I have honed.

Lynn

Thanks for the great responses!! Very informative and thought out. So it seems that I will benefit from the pastes following the coticule, I just may need to do some experimenting! Whether or not it does create a burr edge as desribed above, I think I will still be conservative in the number of stroked I use on the pastes, and go from there. I think this, as many other issues on straight razors, is a very personal decision, and I will have to find what works best for my face . I look forward to trying it out and having fun experimenting. Thanks again for all the help,

Dave

I felt like going back to my first post and emphasize on something...

Originally Posted by Bart

Pastes don't have that disadvantage. They can convex the bevel planes, and by doing so, they directly affect the keenness of the very edge. However, I believe that they form the cutting part of the edge by drawing out a bur. Nothing wrong with that, but if you need to do a lot of pasting to achieve good sharpness, that bur is going to be large. And that bur doesn't have the same sturdiness as the original hardened steel. Depending on you beard type, that could be an issue. There's only one way to find out.

I believe it's going to make a big difference whether a conservative number of laps is done to smooth out an edge, or some serious work on a pasted hanging strop is done to boost the sharpness. My experience with pastes is only the latter. I usually did 30+ laps on my CrO loom strop, with slack and some pressure. It really could boost the sharpness considerably, but at the cost of the edge durability. One or two very nice smooth shaves. That's all I got.

I have one of those HandAmerican felt strops too, but haven't got around purchasing something to spray on it yet.

My original point was that I think pastes are best used to turn good edges into better edges. And not to turn bad edges into decent edges, as I was trying to do in what I referred to as "my CrO phase".

Best regards.
Nice thread!

Bart.

Bart.

Originally Posted by StraightRazorDave

I shaved with a razor I finished on my coticule (no pastes), and tonight I shaved with a razor that I had professionally honed (finished on a Maruichi Nakayamai). The one I had done professionally was much smoother. Dave

Sometimes it's not the arrow but the Indian.

Originally Posted by Lynn

In many instances, I utilize either .5 diamond spray or chromium oxide after coming off either the Escher or the Nakayama stones. I have also done this after coming off the 16K Shapton Glass Stone. Primarily this makes the sharp razor a smoother shaver. This practice has been very consistent with virtually all razor brands that I have honed.

Lynn

Lynn
Are you applying the CrOx and Diamond to felt, leather or both? How about after a Shapton 30K, do you still feel the edge is smoother after CrOx and /or diamond?

Agreed about lots of strokes, Bart. I'm starting to move away from pastes for the same reason. One thing I thought it might be is that, as you say, when stropping w/ pastes, you are drawing metal forward. If doing lots of strokes (30+), it might be starting to deform the edge from a triangular shape to a teardrop shape. Obviously less structural integrity w/ the latter--particularly if you have a Brillo pad for a beard like I do!

For me, if I do lots of strokes on CrO after the coticule, I get 3 shaves max before it needs a touchup. I also found (especially on my Wapi for some reason) that if I did more than 2 touchups on just the CrO without going to a hone first, that I would get a wire edge.

For extra sharpness after the coticule, I'm thinking a finer hone is the answer, followed by a few strokes on CrO just to smooth/even things out.