Thread: Is newspaper recommended?

Hello, I'm a complete beginner, and like many of the threads I have looked over, I have had some issues with sharpness. I bought a used razor from an SRP member, who said that it was only used twice after being honed by Lynn. I bought a new Illinois strop from Amazon, and I think that I'm getting the hang of that and getting it broken in, but I'm wondering if the combination of a new strop and beginner mistakes mean that it needs to be re-honed.

I'm trying to wait at least a month or longer before I buy a hone, to spread out the impact of all this on my bank account. In the meantime I'm going to keep working on my stropping technique and hope that helps. My question is about newspaper stropping. Some of what I've read says that it's fine as a substitute in the absence of a leather strop, but other posts seem to imply it's a good thing to do in addition to leather as a way to increase sharpness between hones. Is this true?

In my experience newspaper does increase sharpness on an edge that is already honed properly. The number of passes also in my experience also reach a point where the sharpness "tops out" or doesn't noticeably continue to increase the sharpness. I stropped a razor on newspaper giving it 100 passes then a morning test shave each day for seven days. That meant then, 700 passes on newspaper with 7 test shaves between each series. The razor did not feel "7 times sharper".

You've got nothing to lose by trying the newspaper stropping method. Get it flat. Use pages with a lot of ink and do many passes. At least 100 passes before a test shave.

Chris L

Chris,

Do you use previously read newspaper or un-read newspaper? I'm curious if eye rays have any bearing on affecting the strop-worthiness of the medium and if they contribute materially to breaking in said strop for its life after edification.

I use newspaper on every razor I have ever, and probably will ever, hone. I think it really smoothes out the harshness from a C12k without having a pasted strop or balsa plank available.

If I ever switch to pasted strops, I'll think about dropping the newspaper.

But I always use pre-read newspaper, I'm big into recycling and using preconsumer newpaper would be environmentally irresponsible.

Welcome to SRP. Give this a read here and follow their suggestions for stropping and you'll be glad you did. The stropping tutorial is in the last couple of pages.