Thread: The Grand Experiment

Originally Posted by Martin Adler

The microscopic result is what I expected, somehow, as it shows that stropping after the shave is good for the edge.

I know of the discussion that stropping immediately after the shave could break the teeth, but what is eventually more important is the fact that stropping after shaving removes water and soap very effectively. An edge dried and cleaned this way is not very likely to become rusty.

I assume that the TI and the 39 being stropped only before shaving have both declined due to rusting of the edge.

I could not believe this at first when a German honing expert told me so, but from my own experience and from your really great experiment I am being told the same.

Martin I think you may be right.
One the competing theories is that stropping after is good because it removes moisture from the edge, preventing rusting and later breaking away of the rusted fin portions. That could very well be what happened here and resulted in newly discovered microscopic chips.

The other competing theory is that the fin has memory and portions which are misaligned by shaving will return to their aligned positions before the next shave. Stropping after the shave forces the misaligned fin portions into alignment, subjecting them to bending and eventual failure from fatigue. This doesn't seem to be happening because 38 did not form microscopic chips.

The real puzzle is 39, which was stropped 30 before (only) as compared to 60 before (only). It failed first. Any ideas?

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

As far as magnification and resolution goes I have to differ with you joe. I don't know if you've ever looked at a razor with a truly outstanding scope as opposed to a radio shack type but the resolution will always win over mag. I had brought up the astronomy thing because you could look at the sky with a 400x scope and look at the same star field with 75x in a quality scope and see more and more detail with less mag.

While I'm sure this is true we're talking about features that need greater magnification just to be seen. I don't care how good you resolution is. If your eye can't go that fine, it doesn't help.

As far as the SRP razors go the striations or scratches are the honing or stropping remnants I would guess. SRP 39 which was the loser in this thing did have the most scratches along the bevel and edge and most were very vertical, few were diagonal. SRP 38 had fewer and they were finer and more diagonal. At the start of this thing I made real sure they all looked very close though I don't know that that is the most important thing as opposed to the shave quality as a comparison. Its just an interesting observation.

If you honed with the x-pattern or the equivalent you had to produce diagonal scratch lines on thr bevel. I don't know where vertival ones would come from. Where the scratch lines end at the edge, they define microderrations or little teth that do the cutting. I can't even make them out very well at 200x, so I don't think you would see them at 50x. So those scratch lines mudt be there unless you hone so much that you wear them down.

It occurs to me that it is obvious that the unstropped edge was chaotic since it wasn't stropped after the last shave. Fail to strop either of the other blades after just one shave and I predict you will observe the same in them. A more accurate observation would be to strop all three razors (as just before shaving (with all three!!! )) and THEN put them all to the microscope. Since #39 is shaving less well, it's substandard edge should still be somewhat observable.

Hi Joe,

for me this looks like the strop not only aligns the teeth to their original position, but more: it polishes the edge. So this could result in the difference between the 39 and the TI (the 39 failing earlier than the TI).

Maybe the polishing effect is even bigger when the egde is a bit rusty, because rust is worn off more easily than steel.

This is just a guess, but would explain the observation.

Best regards
Martin

Hi Martin:

First let me say that I believe all the talk about striations is misleading. If you lok at a properly honed edge under a microscope it will have scratch lines or striations on the bevel. If you hone with the x-pattern or equivalent they'll be diagonal to the edge if you hone straight across the'll be perpendicular to the edge. If you finish with pasted strps, the finer striations will cross the ones made on the stone.

The bottom line is that the striations were there as soon as the edge was prepared. They can't be added by regular (leather only) stropping unless the strop has picked up some grit. Fine striations, like .5 micron, can be worn by stropping and, I suppose, totally smoothed if you stropped enough.

So, I don't believe tha the striations suddenly appeared on 39. They were there all along. So, it can't account for the discomfort, especially since they didn't get larger, but more likely, got smaller from stropping. He pointed out that the edge was smooth, so that can't account for discomfort. If, according to your theory, th TI deteriorated because of rust.

I'm not so sure the striations can account or discomfort. Only the bevel (about .5mm) touches the skin. Even an 8K striation is 1/8,000". If he used .5 paste the striations are 1/50,000". I don't think they could cause very much friction with a lubricating layer over the skin.

I have a rather large razor rotation and I've never noticed any rust on the edge under a microscope when I pick up a new razor. Of course I lubricate them after use.

Hi Guys

Actually neither of those razors has ever seen a pasted strop before. yea I have both a .050 and .025 diamond strop but I've only experimented a little with them in any case these three razors were initially honed for the experiment on the Norton 4K/8K and finished with a 12K Kitayama stone and then the linen and plain leather strop. Since that initial honing its just been the linen and plain leather, thats it.

When I hone my normal routine is straight up and down with the last ten or so strokes in an X pattern and thats why most of the lines on the bevel are perpendicular to the edge with minor diagonal lines throughout. Does that make sense now? And, forgetting about microscopic observations for awhile its my experience that when an edge starts to deteriorate no matter the razor the first sign is an increasingly less comfortable shave followed by needing more passes and then just a crumy shave and this is what was starting to happen. I think if I had continued to use 39 within five or six more shaves it would have gotten to that crumy stage.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Hi Guys
When I hone my normal routine is straight up and down with the last ten or so strokes in an X pattern and thats why most of the lines on the bevel are perpendicular to the edge with minor diagonal lines throughout. Does that make sense now? And, forgetting about microscopic observations for awhile its my experience that when an edge starts to deteriorate no matter the razor the first sign is an increasingly less comfortable shave followed by needing more passes and then just a crumy shave and this is what was starting to happen. I think if I had continued to use 39 within five or six more shaves it would have gotten to that crumy stage.

Thanks I understand now.

I think the microscope views were a good idea. When you're doing an experiment, no information is too much.

I'm still not sure what the story is with 39, but it sounds like you're approaching an answer to the original question. Based on your microscope observations, it sounds like the TI will become uncomfortable pretty soon. If you wanted to, at that point, bringing both back to their original honed state and reversing treatment could be very interesting. If we got the opposite razor failing, you'd have some pretty convincing evidence. If the same razor failed, I would look for a different explanation.

Plain leather strop is abrasive.
When you get off the 8000 stone (Norton in my case) the bevel and the spine have the mirror finish, where I can see my reflection in well. Stropping that razor many times (the case with my practice razor, being stroped maybe 10 minutes every day) makes this mirror finish dissapear. You can check this with handheld loupe x10+. And no, I don't use pasted strops and I don't have anything to contamine my leather strop with. It is the DOVO best russian, the wide one, from classicshaving, 6 months of use, pasted with DOVO yellow (fat). The leather actually wipes the mirror finish with the silicates that are in the leather, and are abrasive, but they are so fine they cannot wipe the 8000 grit stirations fully. You can check this by observing freshly honed razor, and (or) stropping only the upper half of the freshly honed razor.

Please note that this is my personal observation on this matter, based on my expirience only,

Nenad

So what do you guys think about this intermediary summary?:
1. Stropping after the shave keeps the razor clean and dry preventing it from getting rusty.
2. Stropping sharpens the edge.

So one should strop carefully and long before shaving and have some goes on the strop after shaving.

Right?

I am very curious about the development of the razors in the ongoing experiment.

Best regards
Martin

Originally Posted by superfly

Plain leather strop is abrasive.
When you get off the 8000 stone (Norton in my case) the bevel and the spine have the mirror finish, where I can see my reflection in well. Stropping that razor many times (the case with my practice razor, being stroped maybe 10 minutes every day) makes this mirror finish dissapear. You can check this with handheld loupe x10+. And no, I don't use pasted strops and I don't have anything to contamine my leather strop with. It is the DOVO best russian, the wide one, from classicshaving, 6 months of use, pasted with DOVO yellow (fat). The leather actually wipes the mirror finish with the silicates that are in the leather, and are abrasive, but they are so fine they cannot wipe the 8000 grit stirations fully. You can check this by observing freshly honed razor, and (or) stropping only the upper half of the freshly honed razor.

Please note that this is my personal observation on this matter, based on my expirience only,

Nenad

I have to agree with you. In reality everything is abrasive. Even water (with sand) is abrasive enough to produce the grand Canyon over time (a lot).

I had to draw the line somewhere, so I did it in a practical way. I considered what we don't intend to be abrasive as non-abrasive. But lets take a look at degrees. If you went from 8K to .5 micron paste, you went to 50K. If you went to .25 micron paste you went to 100K. Each time you reduce the scratch lines the surface becomes shinier, although you may not be able to see a difference. A plain strop should be a lot less abrasive than 100K and should be shinier yet. If it seems dull it may be the remnants of the strop conditioner. You should be able to really shine it up with a soft cloth.

BTW, with enough stropping you should be able to wear down the 100K striations. I can actually see them dull under a microscope. I don't know what would happen then. I believe that the crystalline structure of the steel limits how small the microserrations of the fin can get. At some point you should reach the smallest size and have maximum sharpness.