Thread: Lemming Leaps

So I tried something new, from the General thread on Lemmings. Nenad spoke of his friend Dimitrija, and I tried to follow his advice. Heres what I did. I loaded up a TM strop with .5 paste and stroped a stainless razor which I haven't been able to shave well with for about 6 months. I have gotten a few nice shaves from it. I used the .5 with a 2 inch slack in the strop. I then stropped on regular leather, again with a 2 inch slack. Please don't refer to any of this as an experiment. Just what I decided to do.

I gave myself a good shave on the right side of my face. Not exceptional but better than typical with this razor. I then concluded that I could probably do better and restroped the razor on leather with a flat, taught strop using some pressure. I then received an excellent shave on the left side of my face. Not spectacular but better than the left side.

My initial conclusions are that this will continue to be part of my shaving for a while.

I was concerned about the 2 inch slack, but I realized the blade still remains flat either way.

I'm going to try much less slack in the pasted strop, maybe one inch and continue using a taught strop for daily shaving. Well see how it goes.

My intuition tells me a light touch on the strop would have worked well, not sure why I had that feeling, but its the first time stropping I've really felt that way. Like the edge really was maleable.

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

So I tried something new, from the General thread on Lemmings. Nenad spoke of his friend Dimitrija, and I tried to follow his advice. Heres what I did. I loaded up a TM strop with .5 paste and stroped a stainless razor which I haven't been able to shave well with for about 6 months. I have gotten a few nice shaves from it. I used the .5 with a 2 inch slack in the strop. I then stropped on regular leather, again with a 2 inch slack. Please don't refer to any of this as an experiment. Just what I decided to do.

I gave myself a good shave on the right side of my face. Not exceptional but better than typical with this razor. I then concluded that I could probably do better and restroped the razor on leather with a flat, taught strop using some pressure. I then received an excellent shave on the left side of my face. Not spectacular but better than the left side.

My initial conclusions are that this will continue to be part of my shaving for a while.

I was concerned about the 2 inch slack, but I realized the blade still remains flat either way.

I'm going to try much less slack in the pasted strop, maybe one inch and continue using a taught strop for daily shaving. Well see how it goes.

My intuition tells me a light touch on the strop would have worked well, not sure why I had that feeling, but its the first time stropping I've really felt that way. Like the edge really was maleable.

Let us know how it turns out. I always thought the strop needed to be taunt.

I am glad to hear this is working for you. I have used some slack this morning with my bunch of three razors which needed couple of finishing touches on the 8K hone, and shaved with all three with sucess. When I get some more info on the honing method, I will let you know...

Nenad

Second shave tonight. Used the same razor with taught flat stropping. Again, another nice shave. Tried the one inch slack on .5 with a carbon razor and taught stropping. Tested this razor tonight as well. Both shaved well. These aren't extrodinary shaves but are better than I typically recieve.

I am pretty certain I can conclude that I am not rolling the edge or creating any damage. The blade is sharper. I think my next step tonight will be to strop on .5 another 30 passes with one inch slack and strop tomorrow without slack (on unpasted).

I should caveat that I strop using some pressure, its a habit I can't break easily. So slack stropping with a light touch might be just fine, but for daily stroping on clean leather I think I may stick with taught stopping for this week.

The edge is definetly sharper than before, no doubt in my mind about that.

Ok Alan, here's what I think:

Of course the razor is sharp, you're using paste. The real changes will only be noticeable after several dozen shaves as the paste on the strop has a chance to affect the bevel. For this reason I recommend you only use one razor this way and try to only shave with that razor in order to reduce the time before results will show. Also if you haven't got one, consider getting a good microscope to see if you can see the difference.

Also, you may not want to call this an experiment, but it's at least an important experience that should teach us some lessons if we're lucky. Just goes to show you there's more than one way to skin your face.

X

Ofcourse I have a microscope, X, I have the RS I got when I became a honemiester....LOL. So I reviewed the results under the RS as you suggested and I was non-plused by the appearance. It looked better but not impressive. I've used pastes before, but not to any noticable effect. Tonight I didn't see any effect worth getting excited about. I could see some benefit to the edge of the bevel, which made sense with the curve in the strop.

Then I went to a dry paste instead of Amplex. I did 40 passes on .5 dry paste and saw dramatic improvement in the bevel edge.

I do have a problem, I think with the bevel. One side of the edge sounds different on the strop than the other. The directed honing pattern was a circular pattern, one that I'm not very familiar with. May be something I'll need to fix.

The edge does appear much nicer now. The blade is drawing on the clean strop like crazy. Its cutting arm hair like crazy too. I'll run a quick shave in the AM to test it, but I won't have much beard. LOL.

Try to watch for any rounding of the bevel over the long term. I'd be interested to see how long it takes and whether it gets more comfortable as the time goes along

X

Why a circular honing pattern?

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

I do have a problem, I think with the bevel. One side of the edge sounds different on the strop than the other. The directed honing pattern was a circular pattern, one that I'm not very familiar with. May be something I'll need to fix.

You don't have a problem. One side does soung diferent sometimes, I think it's the direction of the grain on the leather.

And for the long term effect on the bevel, no problem either, the razors I have seen at D's house are looking fine, and he says he sharpens them once a year (all 4 of them), using the Yellow Coticule only! I have no idea about pressure, but the motion is circular...

Nenad

Originally Posted by randydance062449

Why a circular honing pattern?

Since the circular motion is more aggressive, I assume it is to return the bevel because the pasted hanging strop is rounding it. Makes sense to me that way at least.

X