Perhaps steve could provide some details on the bevel angle, and time involved.
What works for me, resetting the blade is to remove the guard from the blade, tape the spine of the blade with one layer of tape and hone it on a progression of lapping film, working it on the 15 micron finishing film until the edge is clean and free from micro chips, corrosion and other defects, then work through a progression of 12, 9, 5, 3 and 1 micron films on a glass plate. One other issue is uneven spine wear on the blade, which seems to be general wear and tear from using the Rolls system, minor wear isn't too worrying, but excessive wear is a problem.
The next thing to consider is the hone in the lid, be careful removing it, they are very brittle and fragile, some come out easy, others are stuck fast, I dress the hone flat on well lubricated (with water) wet & dry paper, about 2500 grit, don't get carried away, the hone is surprisingly soft and you can quickly reduce it's thickness, destroying the thickness set-up the Rolls system needs to maintain correct bevels.
The leather strops suffer cuts and gouges, if not too bad the strop might be reusable, but anything other than superficial damage means the stop is a write off, clean the strop with saddle soap to remove years of grime and old dressing. On the reverse of the strop is a layer of padding, sometimes full length, sometimes only covering the centre section, if the pad is in good condition, all good, if it's turned brittle and hard, it needs to be replaced, I've used felt of a similar thickness (1.5 / 2mm).
While drying the strop after cleaning it, it's important to keep it flat, I wash the strop, dry in on a towel, place between two layers of kitchen towel and put several heavy books on top of it, when dry, you should have a flat strop, treat it with oil to restore it's supple nature (I use 'Derma V10 Rescue Oil', used to treat scars and stretch marks!!!) put the strop back in the lid and do a 'Sharpy' test with the blade (mark the edge of the blade with a black marker and gently work it, using the Rolls mechanism, on the strop) if you're lucky, you'll see the marker pen removed across the width of the blade and from the whole width of the bevel, proving the bevel on the blade is OK and that the strop is flat and the surface of the strop is at the correct height for the Rolls system to maintain the edge.
Similarly, do a 'Sharpy' test on the hone, again, the marker, across the width and breadth of the bevel should be cleaned off.
Don't slap the blade on the hone or strop, you'll damage the cutting edge - once you get used to the mechanism you can strop (and hone when necessary) quite quickly, but remember, the Rolls system is geared to maintaining the blade, not to re-setting a blunt or damaged blade!
Steve
