Thread: Pasted Strop

Hey everyone,

I'm considering using some form of a pasted strop to finish the edge of my blade. I've honed it on Norton 4/8k and have stropped the hell out of it and it cuts leg hair fairly easily. The edge seems like it's so close but not quite shaveable without a slight tugging. As far as pasted strops go, what would you guys recommend I use regarding sprays/pastes etc? The razor is a hollow ground 5/8 carbon steel dovo and I strop it with a 3" SRD Black Latigo strop. If I get a spray do I just spray it right on the leather? I don't want to destroy my strop this way so if you could please offer some advice that would be much appreciated. Thanks.

If you are going to used a pasted strop you will need a dedicated strop for that particular paste. Don't ruin your quality strop with paste. You could go with CrO or maybe .5 diamond. But if your razor is tugging you probably need more hone work not paste. usually the paste is used to get that ultimate comfort factor dialed in. if the blade tugs at all it's not ready for paste yet.

I'd keep the daily strop away from pastes/sprays/powders, you still want a clean strop for day to day maintenance. A little bit of balsa from an art or hobby store is a cheap and easy way to try out pasted strops. Whipped dog's poor man strop kit might be worth a shot as you'll get balsa pasted with cro ox & iron ox and a cheap leather strop with some spare powder to play around with. You may well have something lying around that could be used - I've seen people using old seat belts, jeans, leather belts etc, the main thing being don't put it on the leather of your main strop.

I like paste a lot and normally highly recommend them but from your post it sounds like you really just need more time on the 8k side of your hone to bring your edge to shave ready.

How often do you need to repaste the strop or balsa?
Edit: nm I think I found the answer...

You can always try a 1-3, 1-5 small pyramid on the 8K or an additional 3-5 weight of blade pressure strokes on the 8K and see if that brings the razor around a little.

The chromium oxide crayon on the back side of your poly webbing strop will work well too. Put only enough on to be able to see the green and then start off with 5 light strokes followed by your normal stropping regiment. You can always come back and do 3-5 more strokes on the chromium oxide too if you feel you need it.

Have fun.

Thanks to all for the input.

I ended up with a Black Latigo leather bench strop and put some CrOx on it per the advice of Lynn and for the first time am getting great shaves out of my blade. I'm about 5-6 shaves into it so im curious to see how long I can keep the edge shaveable with daily stropping. The first few shaves were incredible and I noticed a huge difference between the traditional straight and the shavette I had been using for about a year prior. The shavette seemed to always give some slight irritation no matter how light of pressure used. At first using the CrOx I experimented with using it daily and I have been getting a little irritation from the straight (I know using it daily is not recommended but was curious to see the effect) so i'll back off the CrOx to maybe once every few weeks and see if this helps the issue.