Greetings
With Valet Autostrop razors, quite irrespective of which model and how the blade is held in place the purpose of the various blade securing arrangements is to secure the blade in the blade holder (whatever type of blade holder) during the stropping process, it plays little or no part during the shave; in every model during the shave the blade is forced up against the blade stops as it is with standard SE razors. When the blade is released from against the stops for stropping in the razor there would be nothing to prevent the friction of the leather on the blade pulling it from the blade holder (in VC one and other very early models) or from the gate or from under the blade 'ears' in the later models, this is the reason for the various methods of securing a blade.
With modified Gem blades the little half moons that were in the very bottom of the Valet blades and secure the blade are not there, they are further up the blades side so on VC1 and other early models a modified GEM blade is not held in by anything other than friction, this does not matter at all as during the shave it is forced hard up against the blade stops and thus cannot move.
The subject of stropping any modern coated blade is subject to much debate,a lot of myth/black art and a huge amount of YMMV. A modern stainless coated blade relies on the coating for it's sharpness therefore any wear of the coating (ie stropping) unless very very small is likely to worsen the edge, some folks gently strop them and find it helps, I have found just the opposite. Modern carbon GEM blades ie Blue Stars and Treet's in theory should be stroppable but in practice they are not, I carried out a lengthy experiment with Treet blades three or four years ago involving thirty blades, I was unable to make a single one any better then when I removed it from the packet despite using different abrasives leathers and other stropping mediums.
Old thick stroppable SE blades are a very different animal, whilst the steel is probably no better, they are thick and ground with just a single bevel at a quite different angle and will strop up in the same way as a wedge (hollow ground) blade. So IMHO all modern SE blades carbon or stainless are what they are, disposable blades, use them and bin them.
Regards
Dick.
