Thread: Funny thing happened on the way to the strop

So, I have been messing with my microscope and I noticed again and again that my blades had that incredible "black ice" look when I honed on my balsa wood impregnated with .5 paste. Then repeatedly I would strop on leather and I noticed small striations on the blade return after stropping. It occured to me I should try something stupid...and I did. I honed on the pasted balsa wood and shaved without stropping on leather. Results....best shave ever. Baby butt smooth shave with one pass...no prep. Better than a DE in smoothness. ONE PASS, NO PREP! I tried repeatedly with all my razors, and they all shave better now. I tried to strop them all on leather and results...degraded performance. MMMMMM...initial thought is that maybe I have too much yellow paste on the strops (I tried multiple strops, but most have lots of yellow paste). Any other thoughts? For now I'm skipping the leather strop and stropping on plain balsa wood...wow. BTW, my balsa wood with .5 paste is really well used and is now black in color, not sure if that matters. Thoughts...????

AF,
Can you tell e a little more about your balsa strop? I have a photo of my prototype 4 sided balsa in the Gallery, Gear For Sale section. I have early ones coated with red and black pastes and was thinking of trying one with the assortment of Dovo pastes. I have not tried it with diamond pastes though and was wondering about longevity of the balsa surfaces.
Mine can easily be "re-shod" with balsa should it wear over time.

I was going to offer mine as well but figured there would be limited interest in such a vintage design. I am also making up one with padded leather on one side and bals on the other.

I am always checking antique ones I find and saw one Saturday that had the thinnest covering of leather I have ever seen. Barely thicker than a piece of paper but being thin means there is little delfection and therefore little chance of rounding an edge. I started using a thinner leather with a much smoother surface this past week with good results.

I am interested in hearing more from those who regularly use a balsa strop.

Tony

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

So, I have been messing with my microscope and I noticed again and again that my blades had that incredible "black ice" look..... if that matters. Thoughts...????

Love it. I think it's great to hear this kind of stuff. I too have been fooling around with a microscope and have seen that black ice from my 8k, only to be scratched after stropping. See microscope thread. I wonder if the pastes are contaminating the plain leather. Or if the pastes are not uniform in grit. Or???

Anyway, off to the hobby shop now! Balsa specs please?

I'll second that request for specs (yeah, like I don't have enough to do in my spare time). A pasted balsa travel strop is an intriguing idea.



Wayne

Tony:
What kind of thin leather have you tried? I just remembered I've got some thin pigskin around that I got for lining. Would this be worth a shot? Balsa I'd have to get downtown, pigskin I've already got.




Wayne, thinking 3M spray adhesive for hold down

I seem to remember hearing about balsa being used to remove burrs from otherwise sharp knives.

Really good post!

This should start some really interesting experimentation!

Why is this working on so many of your blades? I don't know the answer but could it be that they were being dulled by incorrect stropping? I doubt that because you have been shaving with a str8 for awhile now. So, why?

No prep? Really!!! None at all??? No water, oil, nada, nothing? If so then I can only theorize that the paste used on the balsa strop was acting as a lubricant. In addition your plain leather strop may have had to much conditioning paste on it which is gumming up the edge and preventing the edge from actually cutting. Just a guess.

Abrasives on balsa wood. I have also heard of woodworker's who put there abrasive's, dry or in paste form, on hard rock maple and achieve a great edge. I have not tried that myself yet so I cannot comment on its effectiveness
I once read where the old timers would paint a flat board with green oil based paint and let it dry. Then they used that as a hard pasted strop. The green paint got its color from chrome oxide.

Hard surface,no give.... soft surface, some give.

On my pasted paddle strops i use my abrasives dry, no heavy oil, fat or wax. On my strops I tend to keep then rather dry also.

Whenever I hone I finish by washing the razor with soap and water and then "stropping" the razor on a short napped piece of cloth. This seems to remove anything stuck in the fin and also may help straighten the fin much like a plain leather strop does. In any event it does feel sharper.

I think that "stuff" on the fin degrades the shaving edge, noticably.

Just musing out loud,

Specs? mmmm, I suppose you guys may laugh a little. I went to a hobby shop and bought a thin (about 2mm thick) piece of balsa wood. The wood was about 3 feet long. I read about this on the old straight razor place about 1 year ago. I broke (literally didn't even cut them) the piece up into 3 and put .5 paste on one piece, 3 mic on another, and 6 mic on the last as a way to avoid buying 4 strops (I'm cheap sometimes). The ones with green and red paste have done well too but the .5 has really been the champ when it came to improving a edge. The balsa wood seems to have very little drag, I thought for a long time it had no effect. It turned deep black, despite the white gray paste quickly. I have reapplied paste once and let dry just last week. I assume the black was steel residue but don't know. I typically strop 20 to 40 laps check the microscope and re strop (on balsa only) if I don't see marked perfection on the blade. Usually the lower half of the blade isn't so great (I use the x pattern). I USED to go to the leather after word, maybe linen to clean the edge, and used, seemed to reapply a slight cross pattern.

Tony, I would think a strop with balsa on one side and leather on the other would be the worlds top strop right now...not sure which I would use last now though...:-)

I don't know if its important but recently the thinness of the balsa wood is allowing it to bend just like a leather strop might slightly. I think though I have been getting good shaves with it either way, for a long time and then blowing it with my leather strop.

I should clarify the no prep statement. I typically shower first and then use hot water and oil and lather, wait a little bit and then shave. 15 to 20 minutes prep, you guys are always suggesting good prep... This works great with a DE and a straight. With a DE I can shave with much less effort. Last night I just splashed on a little water and applied some lather (soap, rare for me a cream guy). Shaved immediately just to check the edge. It shaved like I've never seen a straight shave before. Almost effortless.

It could be poor stropping work on my part, that is always the case. But I think one of you guys should try this anyway. In the mean time my shave last night was so close I don't need to shave today. Last night I removed all the yellow paste I could on my strop. I may have to go out and buy a new one soon. It is a Jemico "Russian" btw. I believe my technique is correct though but have no way to confirm. I strop lightly, very lightly (and have tried all kinds of pressure over the last year or so). But now that I realize the leather is not improving the edge I can see why the lightest possible stropping is needed. I do not though know how I will maintain this edge, certainly I can't strop on .5 every day. Im going to try plain balsa for a while and try my cleaned strop on one of my razors after I shave with it. I only own 3 super sharp razors now, but with some honing I'll have a 4th for the experiments.

One likely possibility is that the strop is inpregnated with .5 paste and the balsa wood has somehow absorbed the paste and I'm getting a better stropping action on the balsa wood then I would the leather. Either way, perhaps two thumbs up for balsa wood stropping.

Tonight, I'll clean the strop again, and see if I can strop one and atleast maintain the edge. I'll use Tonys paddle strop tonight. His always seemed to perform better than the Jemico anyway.

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

So, I have been messing with my microscope and I noticed again and again that my blades had that incredible "black ice" look when I honed on my balsa wood impregnated with .5 paste. Then repeatedly I would strop on leather and I noticed small striations on the blade return after stropping. It occured to me I should try something stupid...and I did. I honed on the pasted balsa wood and shaved without stropping on leather. Results....best shave ever. Baby butt smooth shave with one pass...no prep. Better than a DE in smoothness. ONE PASS, NO PREP! I tried repeatedly with all my razors, and they all shave better now. I tried to strop them all on leather and results...degraded performance. MMMMMM...initial thought is that maybe I have too much yellow paste on the strops (I tried multiple strops, but most have lots of yellow paste). Any other thoughts? For now I'm skipping the leather strop and stropping on plain balsa wood...wow. BTW, my balsa wood with .5 paste is really well used and is now black in color, not sure if that matters. Thoughts...????

Do you have any photos with and without stropping? I really don't understand what you saw. Unless there's something wrong with your lighting you should see slanted scratch lines on the edge. As you go to finer grits they get narrower. Normal leather stropping didn't do much to scratch lines made by an 8K. If I worked with a .5 strop and got all the scratch lines thin, I could see that stropping dulled the lines, but didn't erase them.

From what I understand, the major effect of leather stropping is on the fin at the very edge. It's suppose to line up the little pins making up the fin. guess a pasted strop would do the same thing, but it would also remove material.

The only way I can think of a strop dulling an edge is if you don't hold it taught enough. The dip in the strop causes it to come slightly across the fin and could do some dulling. You don't have that problem with balsa wood because it's much firmer.

I don't know what you mean by a black ice look. you should be able to see scratch lines on the edge unless your magnification is really low or you lighting is inadequate. I have been able to make the lines disappear by making the light too low or having it from a bad angle. Experiment with your lighting and magnification until you can see the scratch lines. I can only go up to 200x, so I can't make out any details of the fin. That's where you'd notice if the strop was dulling the edge. Right now you can only feel it.

Originally Posted by Korndog

Love it. I think it's great to hear this kind of stuff. I too have been fooling around with a microscope and have seen that black ice from my 8k, only to be scratched after stropping. See microscope thread. I wonder if the pastes are contaminating the plain leather. Or if the pastes are not uniform in grit. Or???

Anyway, off to the hobby shop now! Balsa specs please?

As I said I only saw that black ice when the light was bad. You ertainly should see scratch lines after an 8K. In fact when I commented on your shots you went back and got ones that showed scratch lines. So what is this black ice, a visual effect?