Thread: Strop Grit Rating

My question is has anyone ever given a grit rating to strops?

Hones and pastes have a sharpening or polishing effect on a razors edge and all of these have some kind of grit rating. Stops also polish the edge so therefore I was wondering if a grit rating had been given to these, as I have never seen one. I realize that there are different types of leather out there that give a different draw feeling to the razor when stropping so let's pick on Tony Millers #1 strop, what would be a good grit rating for this strop? If anyone wants to chime in on some other strop please do so.

The reason I am asking this question is that while using say a 0.5 micron paste, which I THINK has a 50,000 grit rating but can't find the post that gives grit ratings, I was wondering if this is finer than a strop and then when I use the strop it may have a grit rating of less than 50,000 and may unpolish the blade a small bit.

Bill,
I don't think your reasoning will work on these since a strop is not really abrasive it is simply friction at work here. Yes, there is silica used in tanning that remains in the strop but it would be far finer than even the 0.5 micron.

Even the leathers vary and have different friction coeficients. My red latigo varies each time I buy hides. Some tend to be softer with more an oil finish the latest are firm temper and a bit waxy. These actually feel much nicer after dressing while my softer Latigo feels better before dressing. Neither is really abrasive though unless there is something added to the dressing.

Tony

Tony, this is extremely relevant to the thread on stropping being king.

As a technical guy you obviously know that anything has an abrasive rating. It's just that strops are so much lower than everything we use that we ignore it.

There's the rub. I'm wondering whether a strop could be as abrasive as, say a .05 micron grit (if it existed). The question is, given a keen razor, could you maintain it indefinitely with only a strop and normal stropping (40 reps). One member says he does just that. But I figure it would only be possible if the strop had a trace of abrasive, enough to remove the same amount of material as occasional refreshing. What do you think, could a strop have 10% the abrasiveness of a .5 micron paste?

Do you know anyehre I could get more information on this or any time someone has measured the abrasiveness of unpasted strops?

Joe,
That was the first think I thought, AF Davis' thread. I think someone else did a test on keeping a razor sharp just on a strop.

Yes, everything is abrasive to some extent but I still suspect the leather is way finer than even the 0.5 micron stuff and who knows what is in each dressing that contributes to this abrasiveness. I know Fromm dressing smells like Levol to me but has more solids of some kind in it. Powdered chalk maybe?

With some controlled experiments we could get a hint.

Tony

No Alan's thread is a spinoff. The original one is by Honedright ("stropping is king"), Scott. Take a quick look to see the strop he's using. He's been using it ten years and hasn't put any abrasive on it. He claims he can go a year on just the strop, doing 40 reps on linnen/leahter.

Since it's clear that a certain amount of material removal is necessary to retain keenness, he must be getting it gradually from the srop. I estimate that the amount of abrasiveness necessary would be less than 10% of a .5 micron strop. I think I've seen .1 micron advertized somewhere, but I would need no coarser than .05.