Playing with Linen

I'm thinking about playing with my linen strop a little. I was thinking about putting some super mild "paste" on it and see if I can find some alternatives to our current approaches. I have considered ash from the fire place, car polish, or perhaps some other super low grit option. Currently I use candle wax.

What do you guys think? Any ideas? I just thought it be fun to play around a little and see how long I can avoid a hone.

Just off the top of my head, ash seems kinda dirty and too low a grit and car polish seems like it would be a pretty good option...

These both seem to be in the cleaning the edge category though and not in the bevel maintenance category????? but I don't know?

AFD,

Years ago when I started meesing about with straights, I slapped some auto polish on the linen to get my store bought razor shave ready. It worked. Still does.

I'm sure this isn't as good as a the various chromium oxides, but in those pre internet days I was working in a vacuum and didn't know any better.

I file this under "if a stupid idea works, it isn't a stupid idea."

regards &C
LG

I believe Thiers-Issard makes a paste for the linen. Some guys have mentioned chalk in the past for the linen.

Dovo has the white paste for the linen and I have heard of using chalk too. I have a bar of white polishing compound I was going to rub onto a linen and see how it does.

There is a white buffing compound for cars that is a paste that may work too.

Tony

Here's MOHS hardness scale. The chalk will probably be made from calcite, which is a 3. If the grit isn't harder than the steel it wont cut the steel. But it will be good at cleaning the blade of anything softer than the calcite. I guess it would depend on the abraisives in the ash to determine if it will actually keep the blade sharp. I the polish will be able to keep the edge, then it must be somewhere above a 5, but that's just my 2 cents.

1 Talc
2 Gypsum
--fingernail at 2.5
3 Calcite
--copper (old penny) at 3.5
4 Fluorite
5 Apatite
--window glass or typical knife blade at under 5.5
6 Orthoclase
--streak plate or good steel file at over 6.5
7 Quartz
8 Topaz
9 Corundum
10 Diamond

One of the long time members here, David Uthe, used chalk on his linen for years to maintain his razor.

I have used an old piece of school blackboard chalk and rubbed it on my linen. It does work. One warning however. After you apply the chalk to the linen you need to rub the linen with something hard to break up the larger pieces of chalk. You can use either a glass bottle, butter knife or spine of a razor.
I would not suggest using the abrasive pasted linen every day. Only when the razor starts to pull.

As for using automotive compounds I would suggest using the finest abrasives. There is a rubbing compound (coarse) or a polishing compound (fine). I have not tried these so do so at your own risk.

Hope this helps,

I currently use the DOVO white paste and it works nicely.
I have also heard TOOTHPASTE too, believe it or not, but that is just a little too odd for me.
My attitude is, if it's not broke, don't fix it.
I have also become a very boring person too! :rolleyes:

OK, I went to the fireplace ash first. I can report that the effects do seem to improve the edge of the razor and it does seem to keep the edge working better over time. I can say the effects are very subtle. After running the blade over the linen inpregnated with fireplace ash it seems to start getting polished after only a few strokes. I take it about 30 passes and it seems to get just a little sharper. The feeling is pretty impreceptable yet I feel it is creating a sharper edge. One word of warning for anyone attempting this, it is messy. This stuff transfers to the leather side in a flash and since I keep more than one strop on the hanger it immediately gets on the leather side of any strop any where NEAR a fireplace ash impregnated strop. They must be kept separate from other strops.

I can also recommend this method as a final sharpening choice. Again, the feeling of greater sharpness is very subtle but shaving with it seems to create a sharper edge.

I only recommend this on very fine, high quality SOFT linen.

So, I guess now I will try and shave indefinetly on one razor and report back. Not my favorite thing to do but...I have used this method on both a stainless and a carbon steel blade and received mild edge improvement so I'll attempt to see how long I can keep both running without using any traditional method of sharpening.

Have you used pastes before and if so, how does the ash compare?

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