Thread: Strop treatments - How far should we take it PT 2.

I need to start at the beginning for this to all make sense. I'll make it short and sweet though.

1. Buddy said "try shaving with one of these"
2. Cut myself
3. Got good at shaving/stropping
4. Got good at honing
5. Got curious about a LOT of stuff.
6. I typically shave from either purple slate or welsh thuri and a regular stropping 40x linen 100x on horse shell.

So after reading and asking around and filling my head with as much information from this forum as possible I posed the question "how far should we take our strop treatments". We have stones that we call "finishers", shouldn't that be all you need? Many of us have posed this question and have formed our own opinions on it.

Personally I've shaved with a razor finished on a coticule, 12k naniwa ss, two of the welsh slate hones and all of the above treated with CrOx.

NOW, thanks to a guy down in Cali, a member here, (Euclid440), I've been able to shave off of a number of different treatments. About two weeks ago I received a little package from someone on the forum with two strops; one made from seatbelt style nylon webbing and another out of some strange woven paperish looking material. The nylon webbing was treated on oneside with CrOx and the other with CeOx. The paper strop was treated with CBN .5 on one side and .125 on the other. The strops came packaged appropriately and the construction of them was great. Big metal buckles were riveted to the nylon strop at both ends and bigger metal buckles were attached to the 'paper' strop, also at both ends. Detailed instructions were also provided.

To start my project I used my Plumacher 6/8 round point as well as my Friodur 7/8. I really wanted to know how these treatments performed on both carbon and stainless steel blades.

Previous bevels had already been established but, what the heck, for the sake of science I reset them both on my chosera 1k. After that I started on my Welsh slate progression DT Purple, Welsh Thuri. I then stropped and tested my edge to ensure I could go on.

Each shave will be 2 passes except the last; I'll go for a 3 pass.

Shaving begins:

Day 1: 20 laps CrOx - shaved half my face with the Plumacher other with the Friodur. Definitely smoother than my regular shave.
Day 2: 20 laps CeOx - edge definitely more 'lustrous' than with CrOx, great shave, no noticeable difference in feeling
Day 3: 10 laps .5 CBN - edge gleaming! shave noticeably smoother than CrOx, barely felt the blade on my face.
Day4: 10 laps .125 CBN - strange effect, edge almost seemed to 'disappear', 3 passes shaved extremely smooth, zero burn from post shave alum only a little from the Old spice.

Conclusion: This is an extremely cheap and easy setup to use and maintain an incredible edge.

Concerns:

Maintaining the 'nano edge': I've yet to see any degradation of my edge. I, however, haven't been viewing the progress under magnification. It is suggested that once your blade dulls 4 or 5 passes on the .5CBN and 4 or 5 on .125CBN will be enough to refresh your edge. I have yet to see any deterioration in shaving performance.

Paper material: Sounds like it might be cheap or lack durability. With this said, as long as you're not cutting the material with your blade, this stuff seems to withstand a fair amount of tug to keep tension on it. While using this setup you're really only letting the weight of the blade do the work, any further pressure is unnecessary. As far as how durable the material actually is, if it ever fails me, I'll be sure to comment on that.

Storing your strop: You can either plastic ziploc bag these babies, as they come shipped, or you can just hang them up. Apparently dust and skin etc are a higher 'grit' than .125 cbn. I personally wouldn't store these near heating ducts or anywhere that is noticeably dusty, if your house is that dusty, clean it. Euclid440 suggests hanging an clean towel over them to protect them.

Contamination: You ask yourself "How am I going to keep these things clean from contamination? Not only are you using 4 different grades of treatment, you need to hang them somewhere! You're right, my concerns are the same. After each treatment and before going to the next level, I wiped my blade with a piece of kleenex with a little rubbing alcohol on it. No transfer of treatment has been noticed so far.

IF you have an questions or comments about the products used, or you have concerns about the treatments etc feel free to comment or contact myself or Euclid440 via PM.

There are many roads that lead to a good edge and a good shave. Pasted strops are well-known, and this appears to be just another iteration of it. For example, Tony Miller (used to? maybe still does) sell a four-sided paddle strop pasted with your choice of abrasives on 3 sides, plain leather on the 4th. Many people just grab some bits of balsa and CrOX, diamond paste etc them and go that way. And so on...

If this particular version is working for you, that is fantastic! I will say that I am not entirely sure you need to paste each and every day before shaving, but to each their own, YMMV etc etc.

James.

Definitely not every day, only when the shave degrades past the point of comfort that you wish.
These hanging strops, IMHO, are preferred over pieces of balsa and very affordable as well.

Have you tried using slurry from a fine water stone as strop paste? I have gotten some great results with it, and it's definitely cheap

You can strop daily CBN witout any degradation to the edge or spine. I have stropped an single razor for over 6 months daily on .125 CBN and anothe razor on Cerium Oxide for over a year, daily as an experiment with no ill effect to the edge. 4-10 laps only. Both edges are still keen and comfortable.

Trondsi, yes you may have something there, I have been following a thread on Friable Stone slurries in the Advanced honing tread. Very similar to what you are suggesting I believe.

I have been experimenting with saved Coticule and BBW slurries from stones I have surfaced and will have to try some on some strops.

Marty

Never tried that no. I can't see that taking the edge any further than the grit of the stone itself.
If you were to do that, the grit of the stone would affect it just as you were honing. The idea of applying a paste to a strop is that it's a higher grit than the finishing stone you've used. 30k, 50k, up to 160K CBN. I think stropping on just linen and leather would be more effective than using slurry from a stone (unless it's Jnat slurry that's been broken down extremely well??)

The idea of getting 4 treatments on the best available media to do the job at a reasonable price was really my point. Purchasing a setup like this would give you the benefit of all 4 treatments without the cost of purchasing a stick of CrOx, powdered CeOx and two full bottles of CBN, which would be silly expensive.

Brooksie, your point of view sounds reasonable, but it just doesn't fit my experience. When you use the slurry on the strop the edge becomes a great deal keener than when using it on the stone. I'm guessing it has something to do with strops and stones being used differently (and maybe the softness of the leather). Seriously, I couldn't match the honemeisters using the stone alone, but when using slurry on the strop I have improved some of the razors I got from them.

EDIT: for the record, I'm using an very fine Chinese water stone

That`s maybe sound like not from this world (maybe forum) but personally I do not use any paste. I try few times in paste and really have not seen as much improvements as claimed. However I can tell for fact that my blades are improving with time, when properly stropped on one of my my best strop. Of course this statement is very subjective as what I believe in and I think it is a main point of any statement. I suggest to use what works best for you and try new things.
Other fact is that I have rehoned the same razor about 10 times using different stone set up, finisher or technique and I can tell that shaving results are different each time:-)

Trondsi, I don't doubt that your blades are getting sharper from stropping with the slurry on them, there's no doubt in my mind in fact. Stropping, treated or not, whether it be linen, cotton, nylon, cow/horse/roo, will all improve sharpness after honing. A strop that has been treated with a paste/treatment just has the ability to take it to the next level over the media used for stropping. In my mind putting slurry from your finisher on it is counterproductive BUT I have no tried it myself, I could be talking trash!

If it works for you, amazing! I personally have never had a smoother shave than using the setup I mentioned above. It's also acting as a progression of pastes rather than jumping right from your finisher to a 120k/160k grit paste. I was VERY happy with the shaves I was getting off the Naniwa SS 12k as well as two of the 3 slate hones from the welsh trio. These pastes just took it to the next level.

I plan on shaving with this setup for a while then going back to my finisher and plain stropping to see which I prefer. For sure, though, the shaves are smoother after using the treatments.

Yeah, if you're happy with the way your setup works, then I don't see a reason to change it. BTW, for a touch-up of the edge, I generally use the Chinese stone with slurry, then the stone without slurry, then strop with slurry, then canvas, and finally clean leather. The strop with slurry made a pretty big difference in my experience, but I have no reason to think it's better than your system.