Thread: Edge Maintenance

Good Day,
Between honings, what is your prefered method for edge maintenance? Pastes and Paddle Strops, Barber Hones, Etc? Also, would a yellow Belgian be good for touch ups?

Thanks,

I'm using a 3" piece of leather from HandAmerican.com glued down. Half is their boron carbide 1.8 micron, the other half is chromium oxide .5 micron. Some folks really rave about their flatbed leather hones. Some folks like diamond pastes.

I'm still learning and experimenting, so take this with a grain of salt. I've been using Tony's 4-sided paddle for touching up the razor. Also, I may give a few swipes on the 8000 before hitting the paddle. Both seem to work and give great shaves. If you use the paddle too much, you'll lose the the cutting striations which can be only be achieved with a hone but that's another can of worms I'll open. It's a very controversial topic talked about last week at length. Just do a search on striations and you'll see.

-Rob

I use one of Tony's 4-sided paddle strops with 3,1,.5 and .25 micron pastes. Seems to be working much better than the stone only method I had been using. I don't have a belgian yellow, but I hear they are very nice for a super fine edge.
-Fred

In between honing I think all you really need is the smooth leather strop.

I hone with the 4k/8k norton, then I stropp after honing, linnen and leather. This gives me shave ready. I strop after each shave and that does it, I get great results. This minimal method lets me weed out the good shavers from the not so good razors. The big question is what do I do with the razors that dont make my top of the list.

If in nick the blade on the faucet or if for some reason I feel a touch up is necessary, I touch the blade up on a belgium blue barber hone then a swaty. I use my soap and brush to lather up the barber hones and then do the deed.

This is what does it for me.

I have just started using one of Tony Millers 4 sided pasted strops. So far so good.

I'm another happy user of Tony's 4-sided pre-pasted strops with 3, 1, 0.5 and 0.25 micron pastes. It works well for me.