Thread: My adventures with a pike strop/ hone

One of the first items I bought when starting to straight shave was a pike strop/ hone. At the time I bought it I really only bought it for the barber hone side as the leather on it was beyond repair. I lapped it to get rid of some cracks and to clean the stone up and kept it around till my razor started going dull.

Once my razor started pulling badly I did a couple really light strokes and test shaved with it and the razor was much worse. I took the razor back to bevel set and all the way back to shave ready. Shaved with it awhile. It then started pulling and I decided to use the barber hone again and again the edge was worse afterwards.

I then put the stone away and just used what I knew worked. Every so often though I would pull it out and give it a try as my skills progressed and always ended up with bad edges.

Until about a year ago I decided I was going to replace the leather on it with a piece from a ruined Illinois strop. To replace the leather I had to first remove the stone from its holder. After removing the stone from the holder I sized the leather and prepped it to go on the backside of the holder. As I was ready to put the stone back in the holder to clamp the leather in place I decided to flip the stone to the side that I had not touched at all. After doing that I used just some soap and water to clean the stone and replaced in the holder. Since then the stone has been working just like you would expect a barber hone to work. ( Word of caution with this hone do not lap. The side I lapped when I hone seems to slurry on its own. The side I did nothing to you can see the metal come off and build up on the hone)

With the leather replaced I used it for about a week as my everyday strop. It does work just using the leather side but takes a lot of laps. So it went away again.

Then about three months ago I was getting ready to go on a week long trip. I decide to look up the original instructions for the pike strop hone. I had seen them before but dismissed them as they were so different from everything else I had read. So just to refresh myself I went and found it again. In the instructions it says to do 2 to 4 strokes on the stone dry then strop on the leather some. I decided to give those instructions a try and see how I liked it. First I did it a couple shaves at home no problem great edge so I decided to use it on the trip and since then it is all I have used and found it to be great.

The stone/strop is 6x2 and I have found that 2-3 laps on the stone and 12-15 laps on the strop is all I need. This has helped shave a two to 4min off my shave in the morning. While I do like the long shaves when i can most the time I need a quick utilitarian shave and this fits in with that great. I also like that I can travel with my full system.

I know this is not a normal way of doing things and most are probably thinking you should be able to maintain a good shave edge with just a strop. I don't disagree with that and I can. I have used a strop to keep one everyday razor going for over 6 months with just stropping. I have also maintain a 4 razor rotation for more then two years with just a strop. It however took me more time on the strop before and after the shave to keep these razors in tip top shape.

Now while I highly like this setup I don't think it is something I would recommend to new shavers as it really does need a level of familiarity with honing and stropping to get the most out of this setup. Also as with any hone if you don't know how to hone it would be very easy to damage an edge. Though if you are an experienced honer wanting to try and cut sometime off your shave or you really don't like stropping it may be worth a try for you.