UKRob said:I sent some details on strops in the pm but something else occured to me about hones.
Firstly, once a razor is in shave ready condition, you should be able to use it with just stropping for quite some time - I would say measured in months, before it needs honing again. Therefore if it's just maintenence you want then you probably only need something like a 10k or 12k hone and, even then, you might decide that it's preferable to send your razor away rather than spend on a stone.
However, if you are perhaps thinking that you want to be able to set a bevel on a blunt razor and then take it up through various grits to a sharp and smooth edge, then maybe do some research on films rather than stones as the initial outlay is much cheaper. I don't have any experience with these but there is information on the various forums.
Rob's got your answers covered.
My advice is to NEVER try to learn honing on a beat up razor. Keeping a shave ready razor shave ready is easy. Fixing problems is hard and you can **** it up worse very easily.
The vast majority of razors that are sent to me for honing are in bad shape. I think the majority of my customers manage to keep their razors shave ready themselves, but send me the razors that require bevel work.
Just my $.02
Chromium Oxide Paste on leather or linen or balsa can keep the razor touched up and going for quite a while before needing another honing and even then the bevel shouldn't need to be reset. The second razor looks in better shape, as far as the photos can show.
The first razor has a lot of hone wear, but tape added to the spine can help get the proper bevel, hopefully.
lindyhop66 said:Is that the sueded back on the flip side that looks like felt?
You will see creases like that sometimes in the leather strops. I don't think it will harm anything.
As to length, even my longest strop, not including handles, is 21 1/2 inches long. The stropping surface length is what counts and all of my 8 strops are all about the same. They say 18 inches stropping surface, but in actuality, since you'd bump into the end pieces before you reach the 18 inches, it's more like 16 inches plus. That's enough.
Some benchtop strops have a surface much smaller. You just do more laps on them.
Remember, once you get your razor back from being honed, you will not need to strop for the first shave.
Just to clarify - the reason you won't need to strop is that whoever you've sent it to for honing should have already stropped it afterwards.
It's quite easy for stropping to become mildly addictive - it's kind of soothing in a way. In any event, over stropping and rolling an edge are quite difficuly I read. One of the honeweisters on another forum tried deliberately rolling a decent edge but got fed up before he did any real damage.
Because your strop is a bit short just be careful that you don't catch the retainer straps at either end when you turn the blade over.
As long as no damage is done to the edge, stropping when you get the razor back can't hurt.
asharperrazor said:Interesting contraption.
As long as no damage is done to the edge, stropping when you get the razor back can't hurt.
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