Using slurry as strop paste

Here's an idea that seems to be working surprisingly well.

First, I oiled one of my strops with a very thin layer of oil (yellow paste should do the same trick). I did this to avoid the slur drying and cracking the leather strop. After letting the oil sit for a while, I built up a nice slur on the rough side of my Chinese water stone. Then I applied slur to the strop, using the slur stone. I made sure it was nice and even by rubbing the strop a little with my thumbs. After letting it dry for a while, I stropped my razor (already sharpened on the Chinese stone), first on the "slurred" strop and then on my normal leather strop. The razor would actually glide over the treated strop more easily than on my diamond-pasted strop. It also did not create the problems with paste sticking to the razor.

The result: one hell of a sharp razor! It passes the hanging hair test without problems. Shaves very well too.

I will report on further developments :)

Sounds cool, but if your diamond paste is sticking to your razor, you are using way too much paste. You should barely be able to see the diamond paste.

Keep us posted.

Thanks,

Lynn

I have been doing the same thing for a while now, except I don't use oil. I bet the oil would help it cut a little better.

I have been using a strop with dried Japanese hone slurry powder on the nylon-webbing SRP strop. Works pretty darn good, I like the way you think! :tu


Edit: I found the thread after digging around a bit http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ste-strop.html

Cool idea. (I have actually read of water stone slurry being used on paper over a glass bed hone.)

Sounds like an intriguing idea, one question, wouldnt the loaded strop be the same grit as your finishing hone, if your putting the grit(slurry) off your finisher on the strop? Instead of dropping down in grit size paste you would essentially still be on your finisher, or am I missing something here?:shrug:

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Originally Posted by Jasongreat

Sounds like an intriguing idea, one question, wouldnt the loaded strop be the same grit as your finishing hone, if your putting the grit(slurry) off your finisher on the strop? Instead of dropping down in grit size paste you would essentially still be on your finisher, or am I missing something here?:shrug:

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Yes but no
Stropping is a different media and action so it is not the same even though the grit might be...
Using the same grit, anything can react differently by just switching the stropping media, There is a difference in using say 6 caret .50 Diamond and 12 caret .50 diamond and there is a difference whether you spray it on Leather, Linen, Fabric, Felt, or Balsa..
But you are introducing non-repeatable conditions by doing this ..
What I mean is let's say this works, and 10 people try it, they most likely won't be able to repeat it the same.. You are starting with an unknown in the first place since it is the Chicom stone we don't even know the grit size... Second even if you did know the grit the next stone might not be the same as these are a natural product.. Third one piece of errant grit can mess up the edge anyway.. So although it might work once that doesn't mean it is a repeatable option..
There are so many strop compounds to experiment with out there besides even all the CrOx, Diamond, CeOx & Newspaper..
You still have a multitude of other Oxides, plus ash and even lampblack...
All types of things work, and the more repeatable it is the better it will work for the next guy...

Don't mis-understand what I am saying here, keep trying all kinds of new stuff, but just for instance on this experiment, it can be pulled into the repeatable side by say using Slurry off a Shapton 30k, that was produced with a DMT 600 this makes it a standedized product...

I started thinking about this after I had raised the question, I figured it might have something to do with the leather being soft enough that the grit was sunk a bit into it leaving less than the whole grit interacting with the edge. Is this where the differences of the different strops comes into play? Balsa is harder all grit stays above, felt is softer and the grit gets further recessed and so on, or am I way out in left field?

What is the difference between different # carets of the same size?
Is the caret count the number of faces? I thought carets were the size of diamonds, but then again I cant imagine a 6 caret diamond would be a very good finisher, unless we were talking about bank accounts.:)

Highjacking this thread was not my intention, if I have I apologize to the OP. Thanks again Glen for your informative post.

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Originally Posted by Jasongreat

Sounds like an intriguing idea, one question, wouldnt the loaded strop be the same grit as your finishing hone, if your putting the grit(slurry) off your finisher on the strop? Instead of dropping down in grit size paste you would essentially still be on your finisher, or am I missing something here?:shrug:

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I wondered the same thing, so that's why I used slurry from a Japanese natural:

-I figured if it fractures under pressure on a hone v razor surface, there's a small chance it would do the same thing, albeit less often, under razor v strop.

-even if it didn't break down over time, I get a long surface of approx same grit as my J-nat, but it should cut more "gently" and provide more polishing action due to the razor/abrasive contact area being flexible.

I suspect that the latter is a large part of the difference between different strop types and different results that you noted in your above post.

Thanks for the replies guys! (sorry, I meant "slurry" of course; any way we can correct the title of this thread?)

Lynn is probably rigth that I used too much diamond paste, but I found that it takes very little for it to stick to the razor. It's quite sticky stuff, after all. I should mention that the Chinese water stone is a very fine-grit stone, which may be why this works so well. As for unevenness of grit, this is one of the "charms" of a natural product, and it applies equally to sharpening with a natural stone (be it Chinese or Belgian or whatever). I ran my thumb over the strop to catch any uneveness, but couldn't find any gritty spots. I suspect that if it feels smooth, then it probably IS smooth. Come to think of it, the red paste (from Dovo, I think) felt grittier, and more uneven.

By the way, I read somewhere that many natural stones have "rounder" grit than most artificial stones and pastes. Not very scientific observation here, but from the way the razor slid over the strop I suspect that this may be true (though it probably varies with the stone quarry).

I also think that stropping with the same grit is bound to produce a different result from honing on a stone. This is because of the direction of sharpening, the softness of the leather etc.

Let me know if someone tries this with another fine-grit stone (Belgian anyone?).

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Originally Posted by trondsi

By the way, I read somewhere that many natural stones have "rounder" grit than most artificial stones and pastes. Not very scientific observation here, but from the way the razor slid over the strop I suspect that this may be true (though it probably varies with the stone quarry).

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You might be on to somthing here with that part, Same as Joke1176 was saying about his J-nat slurry experiment...

I wonder if smoothing/smashing with a round edge might help that along and also eliminate the rough or errant particles... Like maybe rubbing the strop with a rounded piece of steel, about the same as glass bottle burnishing on leather strops?????

I messed around with a Thuringian as well... worked pretty darn well also, similar results.

I haven't tried a coticule yet, since I figured the spheroid particles wouldn't be as prone to fracture as the six sided particulate in the J-nats and Thuringian hones, and thus not cut as "finely".

Maybe that's over thinking it, but isn't that what this fine forum is all about?:)

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Originally Posted by joke1176

I messed around with a Thuringian as well... worked pretty darn well also, similar results.

I haven't tried a coticule yet, since I figured the spheroid particles wouldn't be as prone to fracture as the six sided particulate in the J-nats and Thuringian hones, and thus not cut as "finely".

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Thanks for the feedback. Did the razor slide over the strop effortlessy, or was there drag? With me, the razor movement is as if there is no friction whatsoever. The sharpening action is still very noticable though :).

I am not sure if I follow the "fracture" thing, but I suspect that coticule should work, although if the particles are spherical, it may be a slower cutter. Do tell if you try.

I just tried with my high carbon steel razor with surprisingly nice results, even though the razor has a slight uneven spot (noticable on the thumbnail) which is going to take some time to smooth out with my fine-grit Chinese stone (I don't have a grittier hone at present).

a little powder on the strop did not noticeably alter the draw significantly IMHO.

I should probably warn people not to overdo this "experiment", particularly not if you are using slurry from the grittier water stones on your strop.

This is true for diamond paste as well: I must have overdone that, as two razors became very uncomfortable to use. For a while, my Renaissance razor was probaly too sharp in some spots, and too rough in others. Now that I have honed it a bit on the Chinese stone, and then stropped it mildly with slurry, it is sharp AND smooth and shaves like a dream. :)

I recently had another great experience using slurry as strop paste.

Recently, one of my newly honed razors became dull at the tip (toe) due to a slight mishap. Nothing really bad, but it felt uneven towards the toe (using the thumb), and normal stropping did not fix it. I gave it a go on the slurried strop, and noticed it felt much better under the thumb after four laps. After another four it was completely smooth and popping hairs like never before.

I shaved with it this morning, and it was smooth sailing all the way.

I wouldn't read too much into the draw thing when stropping. No different than stropping on plain leather sometimes you get draw and sometimes you don't. With any pasted strop there are many factors relating to carrier and slurry material itself which could affect how well the razor glides over the strop which may have nothing to do with the stropping or honing result.

Interestingly, after starting to use a combo canvas/leather strop in addition to very occasional touch-ups on my slurried strop (it's been a few weeks since last time I had to use it), my high-carbon steel basic Dovo razor is now my best shaver. All my razors became better with this new approach, but the black Dovo has taken the top spot from my Dovo Renaissance stainless razor. Not sure if it is the shape or the steel that makes it respond better, but the fact that my Dovo silver steel is in-between in shave quality may indicate that the carbon steel works very well with the new stropping methods.