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...????