Thread: Poll: How often do you Re-paste your Leather strop

I have a leather bench strop with CrO. I think in the 6 or 7 years I have it I repasted it 1 time. I don't know how many razors but it's a lot.

I find that my pasted or sprayed strops will be good for a lot of razors before loosing abrasive power.
It is hard to put a number on it, but I would guess at least a couple hundred or so. Perhaps even more.

I use powder on balsa and one application lasts until I lap the balsa flat again.

I use the Dovo pastes so I didn't vote. Moreover, I don't know if I could answer without taking liberty's. The truth for me is, I re-paste when the paste is no longer moist.

Not sure how to answer,
I have one pasted strop,
I am between 25 and 50 razors taken to it (quite a few while on the initial learning curve for honing),
I have noticed no degradation in performance to point,
it will be interesting to see how far the first application will take me.

I use chrom ox (0.5 micron) on a canvas strop or on a balsa block
- iron ox (0.1 micron) on a canvas stop
Then finish on horse shell - with no paste
These work pretty good for me

The only leather I have pasted is not for razors, paddles for chisels and plane blades and larger for knives. Which by the way, I believe is very under rated, a quick, clean, easy way to refresh a knife edge.

I do have several other pasted strops for razors that I use regularly and almost all have never been re-pasted. Some well over 4+ years old having done hundreds of razors, thousands of laps. They still work well.

I think we often confuse pasted stropping with honing where we are removing relatively large amounts of metal. With a pasted strop we are just polishing the tips of the lands at the edge, re- shaping as opposed to re-creating stria,(creating new scratch patterns) very, very minute amounts of metal.

Re-pasting is not really needed, except with very aggressive pastes. I only notice metal on Diamond strops.

I have one CrOx pasted strop that was treated almost 2 years ago, and only lightly then and used on a regular basis only after honing to dial in my preferred edge. (I don't touchup on CrOx, if needed I go back to the stones). A few months ago I started finishing on an Ozuku Asagi with Mejiro and Tomo Nagura and haven't been to the CrOx since.

Howard

I have a strop that has ChromeOx on it. I used it when I think it'll help. Never repasted it. Maybe I will when I can't see green or when it no longer seems to help. It's been... I dunno... long enough to forget.

I have never used it or had the urge to try. By the looks of it I am not missing much. I always got the feeling it was something guys tried before they spent money on stones or in place of stones for maintenance. Reminds me of another device that I won't mention (so as to stay on topic) that few really seem to use anymore on a regular basis.