Thread: Your Preference - Pasted Linen/felt, etc. or Leather or Balsa

I haven't found a definitive "this paste with this material" discussion and I think it's because such combinations do not exist. This is another YMMV thing. But for the fun of it, I'd like to know what everyone prefers. I haven't tried enough to settle on one but I am currently using .5 diamond spray on felt followed by Chromox on felt. I have the felt on bench strops that I made. I'm particularly interested in whether people like to use diamond spray on a soft material like linen or felt or is diamond spray on leather preferred? I'd like to know what your setups are. Pictures would be good too.

I use crox on balsa, .25 diamond slurry on felt, and .5 dia paste on leather. I also use diamond lapping film. So far I found the slurry on felt gets me a very sharp edge that lasts(7 shaves without a touchup) the crox and pasted leather about 5 and the .1 micron lapping film doesnt last 3 shaves. Its super refined and sharp and probably too fine an edge for the steel. I ordered some crox to put on my hanger on felt to see how that goes as I was advised that the edge would be smoother on felt or linen as opposed to on balsa. I will be trying this soon.

I use crox on balsa and have .25 diamond and .5 diamond on felts. I do not use any treatments on my leather strops. All treatments are SRD sprays.

I would think with diamond because it is such a hard media the background would make a really big difference. The harder the surface the less rebound from the diamond and the more force exerted on the blade. I don't know that anyone has experimented with this but it would be interesting.

I tried .1 micron film on granite. Wicked sharp but not in a bad way, only thing is edge doesn't last. So far I like the edge off felt and diamond slurry, very sharp and lasts.

On Granite huh? That sounds sounds like something I would try.

I have tried pasting leather, felt, linen and balsa. For me I found leather provides the best median. I have used a number of different paste also dovo, diamond, crox, ferox and graphite

I haven't experimented with pastes enough to draw a firm conclusion on how long an edge will last but ..... I have an old Tony Miller 4 sided paddle with paste on all 4 sides. Varying grits and I don't remember what .... the usual suspects I'm sure. I have the SRD felt hanger with .05 diamond spray, a HandAmerican flatbed with chrom-ox on felt that worked nice. I also have 3 pieces of aircraft balsa mounted on plexiglass 3x8 with diamond pastes in progressive grits. Finally the Livi loom with chrom-ox on canvas and clean leather on the other side. I use it and the SRD hanging felt when I need to go to a paste. I don't go there often but when I do any of the fore mentioned work as you would figure they would.

I prefer a progression of strops, 0.5 micron diamond paste, 0.25 micron diamond paste, then plain leather.

Dia film from lee valley, I had a granite tile cut into 3x6. peel the film and stick it on. I need to try film on a piece of moist copy paper on granite. Theres too many ways to skin a cat it seems.