Thread: The alchemy of honing, solved with a CBN paper strop progression!

Dear Gents;

I have been cracking my brain enough!

Some of you understand exactly what i am talking about. Reading and re-reading words on honing, trying to extract hidden meaning to simple words. The learning curve is so steep!!! Of course, we all have made progress. A very tiny bit at a time!

Then a mentor comes along. In this case it is Euclid440 (Marty). I posted a thread about diamond paste and how to use it. He came in with a ton of advice and 4 strops in the mail. One of them is a paper strop. It was empty, for me to experiment with diamond paste. This alone would have been a BIG leap forward. This ´paper´ is the material used between the fabric of a suit and the inner linings. It is delicate, yet it is strong enough for stropping. It made me realize how delicate is the edge of a razor. And i really mean it. The petal of a rose would take ten times more abuse.

The second strop is made of something he calls sailcloth. I have been sailing all my life. No sail ever has been made out of it. But, it is used in the marine industry -since the sixties- to do everything that has to do with repelling UV rays. Dodgers, awnings, biminis, etc... It is a material that i think will do what a firehose do, but in a micro level. Simply put, its a lot more delicate. It has .5 CROX on one side and marine polish on the other. 40 strops on each side removed all micro chips in all my blades.

The other two strops are paper, previously mentioned. One side has .5 micron CBN. The other has .25. The other .125. And the last has .10.

There is no way to describe his generosity, except to tell it how it went.

I went through all my blades: Ralph Aust 7/8. Dovo Bismarck. Boker Elite. Thiers Issard Basic. Early Wade and Butcher. Geneva Pyramid. And Kanetaka kamisori. They were maintained with the stones i have: 1K, 4K and 8K Norton, 10K Naniwa, and 16K Shapton. After that i used to strop them in .5 diamond spray on Lynn´s paddle strop on linen, and then on both leathers. They were good. Now they are on another level. Not only the keeness and the smoothness. What i believe is this system strongest point is the easy it is! There are no secrets. Twenty laps each side are you are done! Ten laps every shave on the .10 up to now have resulted perfectly for me.

I wouldn't believe it myself at first. So i took out my daughter´s biology lab microscope. Yes. All my blades had micro chips. Now they don't. All are stria free. At 450X, a microscope tell no lies. Then i thought that some of my blades would not keep such a keen edge. Well, so far the do.

There will be many nay sayers: give it a try! I would not go any other way.

Best regards,

Pepe Peña