[quote=PuFFaH;74586]Come on it's not rocket science. It has to follow the basic rules of physics, assuming you're reality based.Quote:
Because the science and theory say "it won't work" it doesn't explain why it does.
Normal leather stropping does not. Prof Verhoeven found that in his sharpening treatise. Science doesn't say it won't work. It says everything is abrasive to some extent. After all rocks are worn away by water. And you're right it would just take longer. A lot longer. Forty reps or even 80 reps on plain leather won't do it. Ten times that many might. That's based on the fact that, on the average, refreshing with a .5 strop is required after after 10 shaves, and it typically involves 20 reps. In other words after 10 shaves you need to remove as much material as 20 reps on a .5 micron strop.Quote:
I can't be persueded that stropping doesn't remove enuough material to sharpen an edge and polish at the same time. Granted it will take longer, but then I'd expect it to.
I'm not saying a strop can't do it, but it would have to be abrasive enough to remove that much material. If you'e doing 40 reps each time, you would have to be abrasive enough to remove the material in 10 days (400 reps, 800 reps if you do 80 at a time). The number of reps is kind of typical, and the fact that abrasive honing or stropping is required after ten days tells you that the typical leather stop doesn't cut it, as confirmed by the profs research. Now if you did ten times that number of reps or used a machine, it might.
This just goes a long with what I say. How many reps would you have to do by hand to get the same result?Quote:
After finish honing with say a 8-12k hone, you could only go to something finer for the finishing steps with a strop. I base this on the leather strop wheels i use on my lathe for sharpening wood turning chisels. After grinding to the correct bevel and sharpness, I then put them across my leather hone mop. This you can see metal being removed all be it, slower.
Right, but the heat tells you it's being abraded much faster than by hand, where there's no heat.Quote:
I will concede that heat is produced but this is not what removes metal, it's the abrasive qualities of the leather.
To get a feel for how many manual reps this would be, multiply the belt speed by the time you hold the blade in place for one side. Then divide by the length of your strop. This is a very conservative estimate of the equivalent number of manual reps.Quote:
I must point out that the speed is 300rpm
I agree, but to get the effect you're looking for with the number of reps being used, you need something more abrasive than plain leather. The abrasive quality would probably have to be the equivalent of a 500K grit, or .05 micron. I say Scott must have that on his strop. That's the only physical explanation of why he would never have to refresh his razor. The rest of us don't have the abrasive and need to refresh or do occasional honing.Quote:
So my point is that a plain leather strop does sharpen a razor all be it slow and finely. To use pasted strops just speeds up procees like going from 4k to 8k on a hone.
Scott's approach is just an extension of refreshing. When we refresh we do a little material removal every ten days, as compared to doing a lot of material removal every few months. Scott removes a minute amout of material with every stropping, instead of removing a little every ten days.
