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.

One thing that I have learned for sure about SR shaving is this. There are so many variables and so many different ways to skin a cat in this game that I don't know if anyone will ever really nail it all down.

Its probably not my only issue but stropping has been one of my issues. This evening added a SilverKing USA to my rotation out of my dud pile but taking a little more time on the strop. I just finished shaving with it and it did pretty well.

Last few times I tried that particular razor it was quite uncomfortable to shave with.

Ray

Its a fun game Ray! Enjoy it!

You know I am enjoying it Nun2sharp. There are times when things got frustrating. Now that I have enough razors up and running to shave with regularly, I have those aside as my "rotation" and all I have to do is strop those to keep them going for a while.

Now I feel like I can set back and afford a little more head scratch time on the ones that have been giving me fits. I'm slowly working it out. Of course I still have a lot to learn and a lot of experience to gain but I feel like I am at that over the hump point now. There is a certain amount of satisfaction in being at that point.

Ray