Thread: Stropping for honemeisters

Originally Posted by joshearl

My baseline for right now is a honemeister-sharpened razor that was finished on a high grit. On that one, stropping with pressure didn't seem to improve things, and it may have made them worse. It also didn't pass the HHT very well, either before or after stropping.

But how did it shave? Some of the keenest edges I've met have failed the various hair tests miserably, and I've had blades become unshaveable yet still pass the hair tests -- after all these tests are only convenient approximations of the shave test, they aren't perfect.

My honemeister blade didn't shave well at all--didn't make it through the first pass, and burned like crazy. That was what got me wondering about this whole thing.

I'll be the first one to admit that my shaving's still a work in progress, though. For me the shave test is only semi-reliable. Or my stropping could be problematic.

Which is why I'm curious if anyone else has noticed a similar relationship between finishing grit and stropping pressure. If all the strop-with-pressure guys finish on a lower-grit hone, and all the light pressure guys use higher grits, then we might have something.

Would any of the strop-with-pressure guys be interested in using some higher grits and seeing what happens? Would any of the light-pressure guys be willing to stop at a lower grit and report what happens?

Just looking to test a hypothesis...

Josh

Razors that I've finished on the translucent arkansas seem to need more pressure during stropping, but I generally start out with pressure and end up light as a matter of course even on my chrome oxide razors. But only the arkansas-finished razors really seemed to need the pressure, the 8k, 13k, 15, and 60k finished razors didn't seem to care one way or the other.

I just wondered: if those who finish on a lower grit need more pressure on the strop would that be because that extra pressure is needed to remove some more metal from the edge as the strop is doing the job of the higher grit hone instead?

Kees,

Possibly. I'm thinking that maybe the coarser teeth left by lower grit stones just need more pressure to bring them into alignment. They're thicker, so it's harder to bend them.

Josh