Thread: Stropping is King

Originally Posted by Kees

Scott, what do you dress your strop with? THe dressing might contain some abrasive ingredient or a chemical that reacts with the leather and produces an abrasive surface on the leather.

I use Fromm strop dressing.

Scott

I do not know Fromm strop dressing, it would interesting to know what it exactly contains, it might increase the abrasiveness of your strop leather.

I also thought I would mention this: I haven't always had such great success with my Dubl-Duck strop. When I first started using it 10 years ago, I actually thought it was junk since it didn't seem to do such a good job.

It was only after much practice, trial and error that I mastered using it.

For a moment I was worried that maybe it was only the strop that was responsible for my results. But then I remembered the above experience and firmly believe that it's not just the strop. You still have to know how to strop. A good quality strop doesn't hurt though.

Scott

Originally Posted by Kees

I do not know Fromm strop dressing, it would interesting to know what it exactly contains, it might increase the abrasiveness of your strop leather.

As far as I know, it contains no abrassive. It's just a cream style conditioner/dressing.

Scott

Has anyone ever seen a microscope image of an edge that has only ever been stropped? Joe, has Prof Verhoeven in his book got any pictures or done a test on a razor that has only been stropped after the first initial hone? If so was it done for a good period of time?

I would appreciate a heads up on where I can get this scientific treatise on sharpening by Prof Verhoeven.


PuFF

Originally Posted by PuFFaH

Has anyone ever seen a microscope image of an edge that has only ever been stropped? Joe, has Prof Verhoeven in his book got any pictures or done a test on a razor that has only been stropped after the first initial hone? If so was it done for a good period of time?

I would appreciate a heads up on where I can get this scientific treatise on sharpening by Prof Verhoeven.


PuFF

Verhoeven's treatise is on sharpening. Only small parts refer to razors or str8 or anything that sharp. But the microphotographs and the results are quite interesting.

He does not try long term stropping only, and he only tried normal leather stropping after honing, finding it had no sharpening effect. I admit it doesn't show that long term stropping couldn't sharpen.

But again, please note that the material removal would have to be enough after 10 shaves. That's the typical time after which refreshing is necessary. A typical way of dealing with it is 20 reps on a .5 strop. Scott does 40 reps per shave, so 400 reps would have to remove as much material as 20 reps with .5 micron paste. I admit that 20 reps or whatever Verhoeven did would not have a perceptible effect if the abrasive were as fine as I describe.

I don't know if the abrasive quality of a plain strop has ever been analyzed, but I'm guessing it's a lot less than what I described, or more people would have noticed this effect.

I think Verhoeven's paper is in our files. If not, do an online search and you'll find it. He doesn't have a very common name.

Originally Posted by honedright

Joe, you say there is some type of abrassive on my strop, but where did it come from??

The only thing I can tell you is that there must be. Just like I know there must be gravity if I'm not floating around. Even if you were/are the Michelangelo of stropping, you couldn't remove material without some abrading.

BTW, I use the Fromm cream too. It provides an abrasive quality in that it makes the leather draw more. That means it has more friction (as compared to a strop where the blade slides freely).

Robert says he heard that the reason you need occasional abrasion is to remove micro-oxidation. It's as good an answer as any. But it could also be minute wearing of the fin. One way you could rule out wearing is if the razor needed refreshing even if it wasn't used (you would get the oxidation regardless). I have some razors I may not use for weeks at a time. I've never noticed that they need refreshing after a single use and just sitting around.

Originally Posted by honedright

Since my bringing this topic up, it seems that the above is a new concept for many. Not enough time has passed for most to put in the time and practice required to achieve the results that I've had. I think very soon though, you will start to hear from other SR users who are getting better shaves and going longer between honings now that they know it is possible.

It's a new concept because we've never noticed this before, and it's not like we're refreshing our blades every few weeks just for the fun of it (ok, maybe some of us). So why haven't we noticed our blades staying sharp month after month? Looking at your video and reading your descriptions I can't see where you're doing anything that I'm not already doing, which leads me to believe that there's something else responsible, something that you're not aware that's different about your technique or equipment.

Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

The only thing I can tell you is that there must be. Just like I know there must be gravity if I'm not floating around. Even if you were/are the Michelangelo of stropping, you couldn't remove material without some abrading.

Well, gravity you can prove, but unless there is some metal residue on the strop, there is no metal removal. The strop simply straighten the edge that is being bent by the hair, just like the scythe man straighten the tool's edge back to shape by hammering it with a hammer.

Nenad

Originally Posted by superfly

Well, gravity you can prove, but unless there is some metal residue on the strop, there is no metal removal. The strop simply straighten the edge that is being bent by the hair, just like the scythe man straighten the tool's edge back to shape by hammering it with a hammer.

I don't know if it's metal residue, but my old Bismark strop's linen side had a definite gray hue by the time I got rid of it. And my handamerican strop is getting darker on the side I'm using as well.