Originally Posted by superfly
Here's my view on pastes. Using pasted strop creates beweled edge, as opposite to honing with finer stones (up to 15K+), wich keeps the edge wedge shaped. When you later hone this beweled edge, you will find it dificult to achieve desired results, needing more time on the hone, because you will have to remove more material to restore the edge. Depending on how long have you used pasted strop, this time is becoming guesswork. On the other side, when you hone nonpasted dull edge, you can usualy predict the strokes needed to restore the edge, as Lynn recomends, with two 1/3 passes on the Norton you can ussualy keen razor that is starting to pull. Using pasted strop also changes edge-spine angle, because pastes can "eat" faster thin edge than the bigger-surfaced spine, again needing more time on the hone to correct.