Advice on Strops / Sprays
Hi all,
Just a few quick questions about strop and spray media selection to make sure I’m understanding everything on the wiki. I’ve been wet shaving for 2 years, started off with disposable straights and then about a year after went to DE for time savings. I finally missed the straights so much that I just bit the bullet and purchased a custom Sheffield restoration and now I need a good strop setup.
I’ve had regular straights before (ended up as re-scaling attempts gone bad, another story altogether) that I used for about 6 months with a paddle strop before switching to DE. So I’m familiar with stropping, at least on a paddle. I gave the paddle strop to a buddy after talking him into wet shaving, so now I’m looking at hanging strops.
I wanted to get into honing but am not quite ready to invest the time to learn, my wife and I are pretty busy with 3 kids. Therefore, I’m looking at getting the wool felt strops from SRD with sprays for when I need to freshen up the edge. Right now I’m looking at the .5 micron diamond spray for one (I’m thinking 10-15 laps weekly, is that about right?) followed by the Chromium Oxide .5 Micron Spray on the other (20-30 laps same frequency). Is this the right way to use these as sharpening media?
As for the leather strops, I went back and forth between a Bison Made horsehide and a SRD English Bridle, eventually settling on the latter because of the higher draw. I think it’s about 10-15 laps twice weekly on the webbing, and from what I can remember, 20-30 before and after on the leather. Am I ballpark or way off?
The forums and the wiki have been a great resource; I just want to make sure that I’m getting the right equipment, and that I have a good idea of how and how often to use it. I know enough to know I don’t know enough haha. Anyway, any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help!