Thread: Had a light bulb moment over the past week or so.

You guys may not remember but I was having a bit of trouble with honing some of my razors a couple months ago. Well I have since figured out that I was not in fact having honing issues on some of those razors.....................

I was having stropping issues.

Some of my razors fell into line with about 60-80 strokes after honing so That's about all I did on any of them.

I decide to see what it would take to strop the offending razors into submission. Out of the three razors I was having trouble with two of them started shaving pretty will with about 150 strokes. I still have not got the third one going good yet. But i am happy to have the other two behaving and in my rotation now.

Now I am going back to some that I have not had time to do much with and see what plays out.

Ray

It really goes to show that stropping does have a serious affect on the smoothness of the blade. Have you read AFDavis' new thread concerning understropped, correctly stropped and overstropped razors?

Are you doing the 150 strokes on leather or linen? Stropping on plain leather past a certain point usually has no further affect, probably around 60 strokes or so. Linen is more abrasive and doing a lot of strokes will have a mild honing effect.

In any case leather stropping will make an edge more comfortable as opposed to making a balking razor work better. Maybe a few strokes on a high grit hone is what you needed.

Just my Illinois leather

I have been honing mine to 8k on the norton and then stropping. I have a phig and a translucent arkansas and an ultra fine spyderco ceramic I use diamond spray on but I have not seen any real advantage from any of these past he 8k norton.

All I know is that after a lot more stropping they actually shave without pulling and last through a complete shave (at least these two do).

Remeber what I said at the meet in KC, "ya gotta strop the "bejeezus" out of it" after a honing! LOL

For me, after honing it's a minimum of 100 laps. I generally don't stop short of 100 laps even if it's just between shaves. Maybe it's a waste of time, but I have the time to waste, and I like stropping.

Originally Posted by Maxi

It really goes to show that stropping does have a serious affect on the smoothness of the blade. Have you read AFDavis' new thread concerning understropped, correctly stropped and overstropped razors?

Do you have a link to this thread i can't seem to find it in the search...

thanks!

The link, as requested, good Sir.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...rstropped.html