Stropping With Tape?

When I hone, I usually use a layer of tape, sometimes 2. My question is when I go to daily stropping that razor. Theoretically, you should use the tape if you want to get to the edge but I know that would be impractical and no one does it, at least for the day to day strop. Any thoughts?
And... while talking about strops, I spoke with Jim at Imperial shave and he recommended a strop that had suede instead of linen. He said it was good if you wanted to use CBN or CrOx on it. I was never fond of the linen on my other strops and was wondering if the suede would be a good substitute for linen even if I decided not to put any abrasives on it?

There's really no need to keep tape on when stropping - the strop should have enough flexibility and give in it to overcome the small change in bevel angle between taped and non-taped spines..

As to the suede vs linen issue, I have no clue as I don't use any kind of non-leather on a strop. I would suspect the answer to your question would depend on what you believed the linen or suede side of a strop actually does to a razor's bevel. If you believe in having an additional material (as opposed to leather) component to a strop and you don't like linen or canvas or felt, then why not suede? What's the worst that can happen? :)

James.

+1 On James's comment, the flexibility in the strop will compensate for the angle difference, even on a paddle strop the leather will give enough flexibility.

I have a couple suede strops that I've used occasionally instead of linen, IMO the difference is little to none so I stick to my linen as that's what I prefer.
I do however often a few strokes on one of them between linen and the smooth leather after honing, not sure it makes any difference other than that I get a few more leather strokes, but bad habits die hard :)

I tried stropping with tape once and nothing happened ..When I flipped the tape over to use the other side, :ziplip:the razor kept getting stuck to it. Sorry I couldn't help it. LOL

You can just tape up your strop. It would also prevent nicks.

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Originally Posted by ace

You can just tape up your strop. It would also prevent nicks.

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I find that just switching from right to left handed solves that problem for the next few months. When the right side gets all cut up, you still have the left to butcher!(:-)

Thanx Jimbo. I was going to address the need for linen or any pre-leather step as to opinions but I've read a lot of them and all different. Heating the blade seems to be a common opinion but that's not really true as I've checked with a digital IR thermometer and the difference pre and post was insignificant. IMHO, the linen CLEANS the blade. If you've ever seen the edge under a microscope after a shave, looks pretty disgusting with the residual dried soap and dead skin cells.

Just to echo what James said, The flexibility in linen makes up for the lack of tape. As far as suede goes, I know the more expensive Kanayamas, 70, 80 and 90,000 came with 3 components. One was a sueded type leather. I'll leave the Kanayama just the way it came. I won't even put oil on it. Just a hand rub...

I can see how the suede would absorb CBN or Crox, but so does linen, balsa, regular old cheap belt leather from Tandy, and SRD's wool felt and probably a few more I'm missing. I'd give the edge to SRD's wool felt. It's great for Diamond spray, I'm sure Crox spray and CBN would work too. The medium you use for sprays and pastes is debateable. Probably more personal preference than anything. Although, Sueded leather does sound like a good idea. I'd check Tandy leather to see what they have.

Yup, no tape needed. I tape when honing and strop naked... no tape on the blade either...

I have been using CBN and found linen left unwanted stria on the bevel. I now strop on suede leather no stria, improved edge. So it depends on what your objective is. With CBN micro grits suede works best for me.

I stropped on my jeans for 2 months before FINALLY get my combo strop..wasn't easy but it paid off as I found what I needed at a great price

Euclid, you said you strop on suede leather, is this instead of regular leather? Or is it the pre step to leather that most use the linen for? Do you have a micro grit on your suede and if you do, how often do you use it?

Drmatt

Stropping on untreated suede leather in place of linen to clean the bevel. Then stropping on leather for final strop. Using CBN .125 as the final paste left a near perfect stria less bevel and smooth, sharp comfortable shave. Stropping on linen the following day left new stria on the bevel. I believe the linen contains abrasives larger than the .125 CBN.

Suede leaves no new stria and a clean bevel preped for stropping on a Kanayama Cordovan Strop. I have CBN on a pasted 2mm craft foam, a 1.0, .50 and .125um strops. Lately just as an experiment been stropping about 10 laps on just the .125 with a H2O mist every 3-4 days to see what it does to the edge. I think you can go longer a week or 2 and retain the same edge quality with just leather, suede and Cordovan.

Not familiar with craft foam. Where did you get the idea for the misting with water?

Craft foam is high-density foam, comes in 9 X 12 in X 2mm thick or thicker. Available at Crafts stores and Wal-Mart for about a dollar per sheet will make 3 strops. Glue to a hard surface, I use 1/8 in hardboard or MDF. 2mm foam works best, thicker foams have too much give and will round the edge. The thicker foams are great for hand work on a blade though. The edge imbeds into the foam and it is impossible to cut yourself. Great for hand polishing and sanding and wipe clean with spray cleaner like simple green or 409.

Foam makes an excellent strop for paste as it has no abrasives like Balsa, leather, linen or even paper. Small pores hold paste exceptionally well.

Works for any paste better than anything I have found except possibly Nylon/ Poly strapping, especially for sub-micron grit sprays, diamond & CBN where almost anything is larger than the paste grit even the minerals in tap water.

Many of the CBN guys spray it on paper or cloth and use water as a lubricant. The distilled H2O mist also works well with Diamond sprays. Use a fine mist sprayer, a 3oz plastic spray bottle with distilled water from a craft store. Google You Tube, CBN stropping.