Thread: Dutch Paddle Strop (what types of pastes)

Hey Guys,

I'm about to purchase a dutch paddlestrop but I am wondering on how to have it treated. The seller offers 3 options

Plain (no paste)
Green paste (strong abrasive)
Red paste (medium abrasive)

What is the wisest choise? Is a plain strop usefull nowadays or is it just the smartest to have one side coated in green and one in red (btw, I can get the paste in a cup with the strops and do it myself).

Gr. Skyer

Link to strop!

Is this your only strop?
If it is your only strop, one side plain and the other side can be red or green...
Start with the finer abrasive first. You can switch to the
coarser if needed but you cannot remove a paste.

Hi,

+1 on Tom's advice.

I have used both red & green pastes, and must admit that these days, I rarely use the red, with one exception. I have some old Victorian razors, made with softer steel, and with these the red works very well indeed.

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

So, why use an abrasive paste when the size of the abrasive grain is not known? Once you get done using a 8K or finer stone then you need a size of 1 micron or less. If you used either the red or green then you would be going to a coarser grit, not a finer grit.
Check the SRP classifieds for someone selling 0.5 micron chrome ox or SRD for some abrasives powders/pastes/sprays.

No sense undoing all your work on honing.

Hope this helps,

Originally Posted by randydance062449

So, why use an abrasive paste when the size of the abrasive grain is not known? Once you get done using a 8K or finer stone then you need a size of 1 micron or less. If you used either the red or green then you would be going to a coarser grit, not a finer grit.
Check the SRP classifieds for someone selling 0.5 micron chrome ox or SRD for some abrasives powders/pastes/sprays.

No sense undoing all your work on honing.

Hope this helps,

+1 on the above with a minor addition.

The addition is that grit on canvas or leather is held
"softly" when compared to a hone. Eventually the bulk of
the individual grain gets buried deep in the fabric or leather
and will have trouble abrading the steel of the razor with
great abandon.

By applying a small amount of the finest you have
you should be OK in the long run. You can eyeball
some grits by taking a scrap of polished plastic, peel
off the paper and rub some of the paste on the plastic
with a finger. If it badly scratches and quickly fogs the plastic
it is not ultra fine. Compare and contrast with tooth paste.

In short do not despair if you think you started with
the wrong paste on leather or canvas. It can be
a more forgiving situation than one might suspect
as long as you add paste in small doses.

Having said this I am a fan of the 0.25 micron diamond
spray on canvas and 0.25 micron CeOx on a wood backed
leather strop. Also, good GREEN CrOx
makes it easy to know which strop surface has been pasted.
Some day I will invest in one of those new fangled hard felt strops...

Sprays in the 0.5 to 0.25 micron range on a strop are not "too
aggressive" and satisfy my needs and wants to tinker.

BTW: In part the inverse of this is why slurry cuts faster.
The particles in the slurry get caught between the rock and
a hard place and dig in.

Your correct that the softer substrates ( leather, felt, canvas) allows the abrasive grains to eventually become slightly "buried" in the substrate.
The reading of old text's on the subject relates that the practice used back then, 1850's - 1900's, was to rub the substrate with a glass bottle to work the abrasive in and then finished with a coating of shaving lather that was also bottle rubbed in. The effect of the bottling was to not only embed the abrasive but also to break down any of the abrasive grains to smaller sizes where that was possible.

My point is to use a product where you know the size of the abrasive grain so that you end up with a better edge.

The old timers had to make do,......... we don't.