Thread: What pastes do you use?

Hey folks,

Theres a host of different pastes and sprays available for finishing off a razors edge after honing, or for touch ups, so what I would like to know is which pastes do you use on your pasted strops and what do you like about them?

I have a denim flatbed strop with 0.5m diamond spray, plus a hanging strop with CrOx on the leather side and white chalk paste on the canvas side.

When I'm done honing I do 10 strokes on the denim, 5 on the CrOx, then another 10 or 15 on the white chalk before going to my unpasted daily strop and on to the test shave.

This gives me a nice progression of abrasivness moving up the pastes and the CrOx takes away the harshness of the diamond spray. Its working very well for me..!

So what pastes do you use, how do you use them and what do you like about them?

All of the above shortly. After all, I need to get the maximum out of my new http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ar-paddle.html

So that would be paste aquisition disorder..? PAD?

Not really. I've had them for months, if not years, but never really found the time to use them (except .5 carat diamond spray on my http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ton-weave.html.

Depending on the razor I use
CrO or 0.25 micron Diamond spray, and always CeO

I am answering this question on the basis of pastes I use regularly. 0.25 micron diamond spray on felt and 0.1 micron ferrous oxide on leather.

I've got the usual 3.0, 1.0, .05, and .025 diamond paste on a 4 sided paddle and on 4 balsa flatbed hones. I've got chrome-ox on an old HandAmerican flatbed felt and on a Livi loom strop. Finally I have the SRD hanging felt with the .05 diamond spray.

I've got a fixation for getting my edges as keen as possible off of the hones alone so I don't use any of them much. I have followed finish honing with a progression on the balsa flatbeds from coarsest to finest and gotten an unbelievably sharp edge but I rarely do that.

I do like the spray on the SRD felt hanging strop very much. If I am shaving and the first pass isn't up to my expectation I might hit the razor ten round trips on the felt and keen it up for the second pass.

On some tough damascus, S30-V and ATS-34 I found the diamond pastes very effective in getting the maximum out of the edges where I couldn't do it with the hones. For situations where the hones won't get it I will take advantage of the pastes.

I used to use the chrome ox for that second pass keenness because the diamond seemed harsh to me. Leaving the diamond alone for a few months I came back to it and found the harshness gone. I attribute that to an improvement in my technique. Whether in shaving or in honing stroke I don't know. As the kids say, it's all good.

I use crox and very occasionally Thiers-Issard white paste. I find as I get better at honing, I tend to go to pasted strops less often.

I use diamond paste and CrOx on balsa. The diamond is 1.0 and 0.5 micron. I then finish with 5-10 laps of CrOx.

Stubear,

0.5 micron diamond (SRD) on a felt paddle, CrOx on a leather paddle; I am going to make up a denim paddle like yours this weekend

Have fun !

regards

Russ