Thread: Using water to warm up the razor before stropping

Hello everyone. I am quite new to straight razors, honing and stropping them, however I made a small discovery today that I wanted to share it with you. As I said, I am new to this, so people might have had same observations before me, and, please, ignore this post if you find nothing new in it.

Anyways, I was honing my Dovo Prima Klang on a Coticule today and, when finished, took it to the strop to do the regular post-coti 50 polyweb / 80 leather laps. Before hitting the strop I noticed some staining on the blade left by the tape I used when honing. I figured it was glue which needed some hot water and a little soap to be removed. It worked in fact and the stains were removed with very hot water and 2-3 minutes of rubbing. In the process I heated up the razor quite significantly. And there it came to me...

but first my understanding of how stropping works:

despite the lack of sufficient scientific research, which would clearly demonstrate what stropping does to the edge, I always thought that it simply realigns the edge, without removing any steel from it. This should be much easier with warmer steel as it becomes more elastic.

so... warming up the strop with the palm of the hand helps, and the razor by itself warms up in the very process of stropping. But what if we take it one step forward by actually heating up the blade? One more deduction: the blade needs to be cooled down right after stropping, as flexible steel might develop micro-bents in tension points by itself, without actually touching anything (this last one was suggested by a friend of mine, 40 year steel-working veteran)

I am planning to repeat my experiment with a glass of close-to-boiling water and another one with near freezing water.

Let me know if this makes sense))
Thank you.

I really wish someone with The knowledge and scientific testing would either Debunk or prove that stroping a just used,warm blade has any bad effects on a razors edge or for that matter any cutting tool.
I was told back in the 60s by a tool and die maker that you never sharpen HSS tool bits after use without letting them set at least 24 hrs (rest).
Asked why? he said the steel needs to relax. Not a clue as to what that means.
A very well known Honemeister and his followers say the same about razors,Wish some real answeres of resting metal is valid or not

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Wish some real answeres of resting metal is valid or not

To me resting steel allows it to develop micro-bents (let's call it deformations) through a slow cooling process, as each temperature point brings its own set of deformations until it all comes to a more stable condition. I call it more stable as the imperfections of the conditions will still cause minor deformations in the metal. I would say that 24 hours will be enough to bring the steel to a resting point, beyond which the changes will not affect razor's shaving abilities.

Now, to temper with the normal flow of events, one can think of speeding up the resting process by chilling the metal with water. I would not put it in the fridge as the reverse process will kick in after the metal is brought back to room temperature. I suspect at this point deformations can develop even faster.

The idea behind cooling the razor in my previous post was to remove the flexibility caused by initially warming it up.

Do's any documented proof exsist that so called resting of steel after use actually do anthing??

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Do's any documented proof exsist that so called resting of steel after use actually do anthing??

none that I know of. But there is abundance of empirical evidence showing that it really does make difference. Just like stropping, we know what results it brings but how exactly remains unknown.

BTW early models of Soviet AK machine guns had instructions to put the barrel of the gun in water or snow, when possible, after each round to maintain consistent bullet trajectory. I guess deformation tolerance was raised with subsequent models. However, it is still advised to rest the gun for at least one hour after every 3 rounds.

Originally Posted by Cros

none that I know of. But there is abundance of empirical evidence showing that it really does make difference. Just like stropping, we know what results it brings but how exactly remains unknown.

BTW early models of Soviet AK machine guns had instructions to put the barrel of the gun in water or snow, when possible, after each round to maintain consistent bullet trajectory. I guess deformation tolerance was raised with subsequent models. However, it is still advised to rest the gun for at least one hour after every 3 rounds.

With gun barrels it is an entirely diff issue,heat makes the barrel move,that why you glass bed and freefloat target rifles.

I think the temperature change in the blade from a warm or hot water rinse is relatively small compared to the errors associated with the human element (stropping technique) and the sample population. Compound these issues with the tester bias, and lack of calibrated testing to ensure any meaningful and quantifiable results, and I think this notion may never be proven (unless for some reason a person wanted to test it in a lab...and getting funding for that might be difficult)

Simply put, my ability to strop consistently and gauge sharpness AND meaningfully compare it to a perceived sharpness hours prior is not nearly constrained enough to say anything on this subject that would amount to more than a hunch/suspicion/prejudice.

As always, YMMV

Do you keep your strop in the bathroom?? If yes, then could the strop rather than the razor be the cause. Moist strop vs dry strop?

Guess I'll have to take your word for it.