Thread: Powdered Graphite

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

A different perspective, here.

Regards,
Neil

Some great conversations about daily pasted strop use in this post Neil linked. Glad this old post was dug up. Thank you.

Originally Posted by joke1176

I use it on the leather side per AFDavis11's method.

I also follow AFDavis' advice. But, can you blame me?

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

I also follow AFDavis' advice. But, can you blame me?

I tried the advice given regarding rubbing a No. 2 pencil on a piece of paper and then treated my 3" new Latigo strop with it. I then stropped the razor about 60 times. I found that the strop was much "smoother" during the passes. I'm anxious to try out the razor tomorrow, too bad I found this discussion after I shaved for the evening.

Frank

Thanks for bringing this thread back, a good read.

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

I also follow AFDavis' advice. But, can you blame me?

No, from what I hear he is the bees-knees. They say he is remarkably good looking too!

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by dvoelfreeline

Dragging up an old post, but since I'm looking into this, I figured others might also.



I have just started looking into stropping compounds and am looking for something simple (read inexpensive and works). I ended up running across this patent in the process:
Patent US1602437 - Razor-strop dressing - Google Patents
"the graphite will maintain the strop pliable and prevent cracking or breaking thereof," so someone at one time thought it actually helped the strop.
I also hear rumors of using glass as a hone, and even rumors of it working far better than expected.

For a good idea of how effective compounds are, I ended up running across this blog a couple days ago where a guy takes a blade with a couple notches out of it and puts it under the microscope:
Knife Sharpening Techniques: Global Boning Knife - Sharpening Progression

It looks like you have completely misinterpreted that patent. It is not talking about pure graphite in super-fine powder form (which is the best way to use it) but a suspension of graphite powder in beeswax, paraffin wax/liquid, etc. Not the same thing at all.

Sure, graphite is well known as a dry lubricant by virtue of the weak bond it has between plates (its lamellar structure) but in this particular patent the pliability and the non-cracking of the leather are maintained by the waxes, not the graphite.

As a point of interest, lead was also highly recommended as a coating for strops, whether by using lead bars or metals such as old pewter formulations which contained plenty of lead (modern pewter contains no lead - usually!). What do both lead and graphite have in common? The answer is that they are both forms of dry lubricant.

This type of lubrication is not gooey, sticky, drag-inducing or strop-ruining: on the contrary, the friction is reduced by other means, and even this can be readily modified, as it is quite easy to remove most of the qualities imposed on the strop by these types of dry lubricant. It may not be possible to return the strop to original condition, but you can get pretty darn close to it without much effort.

Regards,
Neil