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Hey, I am a newb(if you couldn't tell) and I have the Lee Valley paddle strop. Now, I am a knife collector so one side has chromium oxide and the other is bare leather and I use it to hone my knives as well as my razor. Should I get a normal straight razor strop or will this be ok? I've been using it for 2 months now. The leather is kind of hard, so that is why I ask.
I strongly suspect a proper razor strop will serve you much better, but you can always give it a try.
X
agreed with X.
Either one will get the job done but consider how much stropping area you have and that with a normal sized hanging strop it takes 40-60 passes to get the ultimate edge on your blade. Do you really want to do twice as many passes (with your short paddle strop) as you really need to? Also, unless you are very careful it's easy to contaminate the non-pasted side...and you can wear out your edge pretty quick stropping it every time on a (unintentionally) pasted strop.
If your leather is "kind of hard" you might consider oiling it.
I use the 2 sided paddle strop. I figured it would be an inexpensive way to get into the sport. Also, because of the firmness of the paddle, I felt it would take away 1 item that I could screw up (strop tension) as part of my shave prep. I don't mind doing the extra laps.
Now if my wife will take the hints about the Tony Miller strop, maybe things will change when my birthday rolls around.
I have that paddle strop too. I haven't really tried it as a my daily strop since I can really strop as fast as I'd like on them but I do have Cr0 on it so it use it to do touch ups and finish up my honing process.
What kind of chrome ox is pasted on the paddle? Is it the Lee Valley brand? If it is it might be doing your razor(s) more harm than good. LV's chrome ox is contaminated with other substances (not pure) and is meant for knives, not razors. There are more than a couple threads on this topic that can explain this better than I can, unfortunately I can't remember the titles though.
hmm, it sounds like I definitely need a strop then, sigh more money to be spent, lol. Thanks guys.
edit: Also, it's great to see so many Canadians on here.
It seems that this thread caught the attention of Canadians! I just joined the "Cut Throat Canucks" group. :p