Thread: interesting thing dawned on me today....

I recently purchased a coticule/Belgian Blue whetstone combo stone, and after reading all the info about the dilucot and unicot methods, a strange thing occurred to me. Both methods recommend stropping about 60 times on linen and then 60 on leather after honing before shaving. Given the amount of stropping (especially on linen), could the "magic" behind the comfortable edge that coticules produce be caused more by the stropping afterward than the stone itself? I haven't shaved directly off the stone, but it seems like it could be that a comfortable edge comes more from stropping than any particular finisher? Please forgive if this is heresy, it was just a thought that crossed my mind.

That's a good question. But I say whatever works.

In my experience you need to strop any razor after honing before you test the edge. Just try coticule and 60 laps on leather only and compare it to stropping on both leather and linen and see whether it makes a difference.

At the end of the day the only thing that really matters is that you get a comfortable smooth shave. Experiment and see what works best for you.

There are several threads about stropping after honing, it gets real interesting if you go farther back in the achives here on SRP and you will find that some actually found that Honing, then stroping 50/100, then shaving, then stroping on the paste of choice, then stropping 50/100 again brought out a significant change in how smooth the shave became and stayed... The theory back then was that the shave broke down the edge, and got to the true edge, then the paste tweaked it in..

Try that and see what you think

This is a very good question and is so very difficult to quantify. All we have are experienced, anecdotal, qualitative data from users on this, and other, blogs. Of course this is valuable data for sure, but what our hobby really needs is an scanning electron micrograph "SEM" of edges followed by some sort of quantitative cutting resistance that simulates whiskers. There are such tools for knives, but the edge of a straight razor is far to fragile to use them.

With that said, here is my anecdotal response.

I think that the stropping on leather is the single most important refining step to any edge, and that if it is being done right there is benefit up to 100 strokes beyond which I don't find and difference. I typically use 60-80 laps. I have always found it fascinating that most DE razor manufacturers stop at ~900 grit for the final hone on the micro-edge. Of course the angle and pressure are perfect. Out of curiosity I have tried a lightly honed razor right off my 1000 grit followed by CrO balsa then 100 laps of leather. It was an excellent shave virtually indistinguishable from my Naniwa 12k finish. What this means to me is that once the edge has converged perfectly, even at a fairly low grit, the refining stages of CrO and/or leather seem to be contributing the most to the comfort of the shave. Of course this is just a qualitative opinion.

No. As much as I believe in the benefits of stropping, there is no way you can strop a good edge onto a blade if the edge was rubbish off the hone in only 60/60 (or even at all, depending on the edge). So I would say that, regardless of the name you want to put to a honing recipe, the smoothness or lack thereof of the edge can never be solely attributed to the post-honing stropping regime.

James.

Originally Posted by Gammaray

Out of curiosity I have tried a lightly honed razor right off my 1000 grit followed by CrO balsa then 100 laps of leather. It was an excellent shave virtually indistinguishable from my Naniwa 12k finish. What this means to me is that once the edge has converged perfectly, even at a fairly low grit, the refining stages of CrO and/or leather seem to be contributing the most to the comfort of the shave. Of course this is just a qualitative opinion.

Mercy sakes, Gammaray, you seem to be suggesting that I may have wasted upwards of $7000.00 on my hone collection when I could have simply accomplished my goal of achieving a shave ready edge by merely setting a bevel, dragging the edge across a piece of balsa wood, strop it up and "BINGO".

You may well be right about this and I will definitely pick a good razor out of my pile of blades and give it a whirl with my Chosera 1k. At the very least, I will PM you with the results of my 1k odessy. I will try anything once and thanks for the challenge................

JERRY
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Could this be murray carter by any chance? Lol

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No I am not Murray Carter.
But I do own one of his excellent hunting knives. I suppose if I were going to shave with it I may consider his sharpening method, but it is not what I use on my razors.
Besides, even Murray doesn't attempt the 1k level shave. He finishes with 6k then a lot of newspaper stropping before attempting to shave with a knife.
The razor angle is much more shallow and gets considerably sharper than a knife at the 1k level, especially with very light final strokes in the stropping direction.
Try it for fun...you may be surprised at the results.

Holy Bat Sh!+, Gamma

I cannot believe how absolutely correct you are regarding the shave from a 1k stone. I used the Chosera 1k, CrOx balsa and stropped. WOW!!!

It's not 100% but it is in the 90th percentile for a close shave. You really have stimulated my creatve juices with your off-the-wall suggestion about shaving directly from the 1k.

It seems that I now have a shameful bunch of finish hones I DO NOT NEED.........................

I've been str8 shaving for 45 years and did not know it could be done. That just goes to show ya!!!

JERRY
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