Thread: Which pastes would you use?

Just get the 1.0 micron diamond paste and keep the other side for daily stropping. Tony's wide paddle strops are great for daily stropping, I recently started using the plain side of mine and I like it nearly as much as a hanging strop, paddles are a lot faster than I remembered (or I've gotten a lot faster, which is more likely).

Randy said that you can even go with 0.5 right off the Norton. In that case, I'd recommend 0.5 and 0.25

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

Randy said that you can even go with 0.5 right off the Norton. In that case, I'd recommend 0.5 and 0.25

Hey, you can do anything. But you'll need a lot more roundtrips on the .5 if you skip the 1 micron.

Randy thinks nothing of doing a 100 roundtrips. That tries my patience. I don't need that many total to restore th edge on most Ebay acquisitions. I find it easier to use a progression of grits that works quickly and efficiently and save the round trips for the end when I'm trying to polish up the edge (I use a .25 paste).

Joe, that was the next question I was gonna ask. So it would take about 100 passes on the 0.5 chromium oxide after the N8k?
As I keep my RAD in check and I won't have to do 100 passes for touchups, I don't mind doing it once in the blade's life-time or once a year at most.

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

Joe, that was the next question I was gonna ask. So it would take about 100 passes on the 0.5 chromium oxide after the N8k?
As I keep my RAD in check and I won't have to do 100 passes for touchups, I don't mind doing it once in the blade's life-time or once a year at most.

That's not what I meant. I only mentioned 100 passes because Randy said he did that in a recent post. But you got the idea. If you go to .5 too soon you'll have a lot of work, and it can get frustrating because you may not see any difference until you do a lot of passes.

The number of passes you do on the .5 will depend on many things, including the steel the razor is made of, the grind and where it is when you leave the 8K. The idea is not to have an extreme grit jump, like 4K, 8K, 50K. You'd be a lot happier with 4K, 8K, 15K (1 micron), 50K (.5 micron).

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

Joe, that was the next question I was gonna ask. So it would take about 100 passes on the 0.5 chromium oxide after the N8k?
As I keep my RAD in check and I won't have to do 100 passes for touchups, I don't mind doing it once in the blade's life-time or once a year at most.

100 laps would only be used on the hardest of steels! When I go from the 8K directly to the 0.5 chrome oxide I usually use 30-50 roundtrip laps.

My vote is 1.0 diamond and 0.5 chrome oxide for tough beards or 0.5 chrome oxide and 0.25 diamond for those who like the edge super sharp.

EDIT: There really is no formula for the number of laps to use. You must pay attention to the edge and experiment to see what works for your razor and your face.

Just my two cents,

Thanks Joe/Randy. I've been checking my mail every day and now I have a marble tile for the bench hone (thanks to Jason). So now I only have to wait for the abrasive powder (thanks Randy) and the leather (nice to be doing biz with Tony/Dave)... Randy, how do you mix the powder/mink oil (ratios/methods) and how much would go on a 3x12" surface?

Thanks for all the opinions and advise fellas. It definately helps me see things differently, and influences my future choices.

If the chromium oxide red equals the .5 diamond paste in grit value are they interchangeable on the same strop? Also, where's the best (and cheapest) place to buy the chromium oxide? I know the cost of the diamond pastes are rather high so if you can get the same results using comparable chromium oxide paste and also buy it for less than the diamonds then that seems to be the way to go.

Originally Posted by Duke

If the chromium oxide red equals the .5 diamond paste in grit value are they interchangeable on the same strop? Also, where's the best (and cheapest) place to buy the chromium oxide? I know the cost of the diamond pastes are rather high so if you can get the same results using comparable chromium oxide paste and also buy it for less than the diamonds then that seems to be the way to go.

You shouldn't mix pastes on one surface, because you never know what the result will be. You can get chromium .5 at handamerican.com.