Thread: Strop Treatments: How far should we take it???

Originally Posted by unit

I have been in many discussions about pastes and compounds that are small fractions of a micron.

The supposition that I always return to is that most steels seem unable to support edges this fine, so why bother? Simply put if you hone an edge to a billion grit finish and the edge degrades to a finish that appears under a scope like a 20k finish after a single stroke across your beard....why bother?

Well actually your statement about a degrading edge or over honing with sprays and paste is unfounded and Glenn experiment proves that for sure. Months of using diamond sprays, weekly and aggressively with
no harm to the edge on different razors.
That said i do understand that some will not consider paste and sprays and prefer to use stone only, and thats fine as well.
Personally i do like sprays and just dont feel like spending hundreds of dollars to find a good j-nat that will achieved the same results.

Originally Posted by Martin103

Well actually your statement about a degrading edge or over honing with sprays and paste is unfounded and Glenn experiment proves that for sure. Months of using diamond sprays, weekly and aggressively with
no harm to the edge on different razors.
That said i do understand that some will not consider paste and sprays and prefer to use stone only, and thats fine as well.
Personally i do like sprays and just dont feel like spending hundreds of dollars to find a good j-nat that will achieved the same results.

I am curious as to why you quoted me for this?

I would never make such a claim about degrading an edge or over-honing as I have no idea what "over honing" is unless it means wasting steel by grinding away more than is necessary.

What you quoted from me is just the conjecture that polishing an edge beyond what the steel can support through a single pass across your face seems silly to me.

Originally Posted by unit

What you quoted from me is just the conjecture that polishing an edge beyond what the steel can support through a single pass across your face seems silly to me.

Yes that was i was referring to, that statement, nothing silly about it people been using paste for decades!

Originally Posted by Martin103

Yes that was i was referring to, that statement, nothing silly about it people been using paste for decades!

I would suggest you take another look at what I typed. I never suggested that pastes were bad or lead to over honing or anything like that. I use pastes and recommend them TO A POINT!!!

I was alluding to polishing to a level of finish beyond what the steel can support!

Perhaps there are razors made from steels that can be polished to X00,000 grit levels and RETAIN this level of polish after shaving...I suspect there are few that can. I suggest that edge refinements beyond some grit levels (perhaps 30k...perhaps 100K?) are silly based on the benefits being erased when the blade touches beard.

If you have data that refutes this, please share it.

I may be new to straight razors, but I am not new to steel or polishing edges. Credentials mean nothing compared to good data though, and I will be the first to admit it!

I think this is going exactly where I want it to unit. The whole purpose was to debate or confirm if these would be of any benefit to the edge. I whole-heartedly agree that if you are creating an edge that isn't sustainable, then what is the point? The whole point of the edge of a razor is to be able to last for the duration of not just one but many shaves without having to do any major adjustments to it.

To confirm my question about over honing: Perhaps I am misusing the term but I have read/seen images blades with wire edges, or foil edges. I suppose I assumed this was due to 'over honing' the blade to a point at which the bevel meets and is so thin that it acts as a foil causing bending/breaking/microchipping etc.

I was wondering if this could result of taking the blade to such a high grit that this happens and if these pastes/treatments/sprays are capable of doing that.

Again, all this is assuming that the person doing the honing stropping is using proper, even, methodical technique.

First, You should have a good shaving edge at 8k. Once you have that, you can play around with different finisher's and pastes. I keep it pretty simple, Escher to finish, and I've playing with the South African hone. It's fun to experiment. Just like those sprays and pastes. Someone was kind enough to send me a sample of CBN 160g. I was really surprised what it did to my blade. The blade was not harsh at all, very keen, and very smooth. I'm talking about experimenting, not using each time I hone as a rule.

Originally Posted by zib

First, You should have a good shaving edge at 8k. Once you have that, you can play around with different finisher's and pastes. I keep it pretty simple, Escher to finish, and I've playing with the South African hone. It's fun to experiment. Just like those sprays and pastes. Someone was kind enough to send me a sample of CBN 160g. I was really surprised what it did to my blade. The blade was not harsh at all, very keen, and very smooth. I'm talking about experimenting, not using each time I hone as a rule.

Thats the beauty of CBN very smooth!

A 120K / .125 CBN edge stropped on a hanging strop will last for 2 weeks of daily shaving, stropping on suede leather and cordovan only. At two weeks the edge “begins” to drop off. 5-10 laps of .125 will bring it, right back. At that level with a progression of CBN the bevel is stria free gleaming, not for looks but for edge straightness.

For now that is the limit for me.

There is a hard limit to the edge of the Razor...That limit depends on the Grind and Steel it is according to the Voerhaven paper somewhere between the haircutting start of .50 microns, and about .37 microns... So keep in mind as you hone when you hit .50 microns the hairs start to cut, which we generally assume at 1k levels, you can only possibly get .13 microns better from that edge..
Now the sides of the bevel can be polished to a prefect mirror, -BUT- there is no proof that doing so creates a smoother shave in fact Natural stone enthusiasts tend to claim the exact opposite..

So we are left with about 1/10 of a micron that seems to be the essence of all the finishing debates on every razor forum in the world

Basically the same thing as 90% of honing is in the bevel set the next 9% is in refining the sharpness and the last 1% is personal preference and what we love to argue about

Martin you bring up a good point, if you strop on 30K paste is it a 30K edge?

I don’t know. Perhaps that is why we can go to 120K and still have a two week shaveable edge. Stropping is not honing and what is most interesting about CBN is, there is no visible steel on the strop.