I have 3 straight razors and strop them in a piece of untreated/ unpasted leather before and after using them. When should I use stroppng paste ( I dont understand what the different colours, black, white, red and green paste do) what paste should I buy and how many stropping padles do I need if I buy strop paste?
Stropping paste
- Thread starter Burnsy
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Until recently I've been using diamond spray on balsa (glued to acrylic bars and lapped for flatness) so I have not been using pastes on my strops. However from what I've read, the main ones people use are CrOx (green) and FeOx (red). IIRC green is about 0.5μm and the red 0.1μm. It seems that the green is as far as many want to take their edges, saying that the red can be harsh. But I'm literally just saying what I've read, I don't know how accurate it is. So if you were going that route you could paste up one strop in green CrOx and see, before buying more strops for different grades.
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I'd also second going the acrylic/balsa route with pastes. FYI, I don't really use them myself, except on the Rolls Razor system, and that uses a grease based FeOx (red) paste.
It's irreversible. Any strop treated with compound is a pasted strop from then on out. You might be able to get it back to just being a 'normal' strop, but it will take lots of cleaning, some sanding, and use before it will ever be normal again.
Diamond emulsions are pretty popular as a stropping compound. CBN (cubic boron nitride) emulsions are becoming more popular, and people say the grit size is more consistent than the diamond emulsions.
Whether using diamond, CBN, or pastes, a little goes a long way. As the old hair cream commercial jingle goes, "just a dab will do you."
It's irreversible. Any strop treated with compound is a pasted strop from then on out. You might be able to get it back to just being a 'normal' strop, but it will take lots of cleaning, some sanding, and use before it will ever be normal again.
Diamond emulsions are pretty popular as a stropping compound. CBN (cubic boron nitride) emulsions are becoming more popular, and people say the grit size is more consistent than the diamond emulsions.
Whether using diamond, CBN, or pastes, a little goes a long way. As the old hair cream commercial jingle goes, "just a dab will do you."
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When the edges start to pull/tug rather then slice through like a hot knife through butter.