Stropping with diamonds,.... back-honing

Guys, I've been reading,.... and reading,... and reading,... :shock: you sure do know a lot about straights!!

There are some "gaps" in what I've been reading and what I can "picture" happening. Wondered if you'd clear them up for me?

1. Using a .5 diamond paste on a strop. Now, is that my one and only best russian strop? What am I to do with the paste that's on there? Should I have more than one strop for pasting? If so, how does one store a pasted strop?

2. Back-honing? Is this using the hone like a strop? I've read about the wire edge, over-honing, pyramids, and think I understand when to do it, just not clear as to "how."

Thanks in advance for all your help!!

Chris

If you have a good russian strop use it as a plain strop, Get another strop for the paste like the flatbed hone (strop) from www.handamerican.com.

John

back hone: instead of edge leading, lead with back (spine) of razor like stropping.

Hi Chris ....

A-to-Q-1) You need a different side of leather for every paste. So if you pick a strop with a smooth side and a not-so-rough back side, you can use the not-so-rough side for paste, and the keep the smooth side unpasted for a finishing strop.

I find two-sided paddle strops are economical if you use a sequence of several pastes, but I like the longer, barber-style, swing-strop as a final plain-leather finishing strop.

W.r.t. your Russian strop, you can leave it as a very high class paste strop. But if you want to use it as a plain leather strop, you have to remove all traces of the paste. Saddle soap treatment followed by a scrubbing with shaving later ought to get the removing job done, eventually. Then you want to use a conditioner such as Fromm Strop Dressing on it to restore the surface the paste and cleanings scruffed up a bit.

A pasted strop should be stored like any other strop, preferably not in the humidity of the bathroom, however.

A-to-Q-2) For an explanation of back-honing, see my message on the subject on the Yahoo! SRP forum #49209 and the related message on detecting wire-edges #49253

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...neBayrazor.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...edge-front.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...eedge-back.jpg

AND .... if you haven't already, try to read the PFD chapter on honing from the 1961 babering textbook we have in the files.