Yes.
Should I strop after honing?
- Thread starter raccoonandbrush
- Start date
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Of course! Strop after honing. The edge may or may not cut better, but it will be smoother and gentler on the face.
Leather yes, linen no
My full musing about stropping can be found here.
It describes what I think is going on, and formulates a practice that works for me.
The paragraph with the title "a linen component" describes what I consider the various functions of a fabric strop.
On the other hand, I know a very experienced straight razors user that only strops a couple of laps (about 4 or 5 he says) on a loom strop loaded with a thick coat of Dovo red paste. He stroppes "slapping-style" as we've seen Maestro Livi do it. He doesn't use linen, and no clean leather either. And he's as happy with his shaves as I am with mine.
Kind regards,
Bart.
bad stone=coticule by the way
me bad man so me hones on bad stone
Bart.
You should add some more lyrics and put this bit to some music- might make for a good Reggae song
I'll agree with Sham on this one, I would strop but not linen only leather coming off one of my Jnats.
Why would you avoid the linen? And do you use the linen between shaves with a Jnat finished razor?
Bart,
In your article on the principles of stropping you state that Verhoeven's study didn't show any effect of stopping on clean leather alone, and that is correct. But if I read his paper correctly, the leather stropping was only 10 strokes on a paddle strop. Most people I've seen recommend stopping strop many times more on hanging strops, which are usually longer. And very few would deny that there is a noticeable difference. So isn't it premature to say there is no proof of a change in the edge from leather stropping the way most people seem to do it? I don't disagree with you that it has something to do with plastic flow, only that he didn't replicate the same stropping treatment so his evidence tests something different.
In fact it looks like his honing only used ten strokes as well. He was starting with sharpened edges though, but he said that 10 strokes was enough to totally remove the metal influenced by the prior sharpening.
His micrographs of the CrOx stropping were impressive, especially if it was only 10 strokes on that as well.
the linen seems to degrade the edge a little.
This became especially apparent to me when I honed a few kamisori, the most I could do without affecting the edge was leather stropping only.
I've never looked at the edge under a microscope but I had a feeling that it may do that on some stones. Since I wasn't 100% sure and felt that the edge needed a cleaning of sort from the stone I just used a pressed felt for a few passes and went to leather.
Would you guess the edge degrades because of the steel of the blade? Turning into an interesting topic.
hard to tell, it could be either. Majority of edges for me are not improving with linen before leather.
For better result with my Jnat, I also feel the stone needs to be as smooth as possible so I lap with my prepolisher Jnat.
Actually his sequence was 10 repetitions of a 4-stroke cycle.
Translated to our terminology, his cycle consists of 1 heel leading X-stroke at either side of the blade and 1 tip leading X-stroke at either side of the blade. Hence he actually did what we'd call 20 laps. (1 lap being a round trip on either side of the blade)
Yes, that is correct.
There is a very noticeable difference. Both a subjective one during the shave, but also on the HHT, performed on the same hair, the difference pre and post stropping is very obvious.
That would indeed be very premature. And not what I was postulating. Verhoeven was looking for abrasion off the leather strop. And he found so significant reduction of edge burs at 3000 magnification. But let's not forget that his study focused on knife sharpening instead of razor sharpening. In the field of knife sharpening, strops are primarily used to reduce burs left by the sharpening stones. In the field of razor sharpening, stropping seems to serve a different function, namely to render the blade in peak condition prior to the shave. If that was solely a matter of abrasion, then all the different finishing hones would be irrelevant. You'd only have to sharpen an edge to a sufficient keenness for the strop to take over. And do enough stropping until that keenness maxes out on the leather strop. That's not how it works, as everyone who has ever used different finishers can attest. With CrO loaded strops, that is however exactly what happens. I can finish 4 identical razors on 4 completely different finishing hones, and strop them on CrO till they shave all the same. Not so with a clean leather strop.
Yes, that is true as well. Verhoeven's study offers only a indirect insight on the physics surrounding the stropping of razors. There are a couple of other sources that can offer circumstantial information on the topic. But in the end, we can only speculate, until the day someone runs more tests...
Kind regards,
Bart.
Very interesting. I'll have to test this out with my Jnat.
this will only work with very fine stones, with the average ones linen does not make things worse.
Interesting...rehoned a full hollow I have on my new Asagi Umegahata and I think there is some validity to the theory. Razor was originally off a coticule (cant remember which one) and I know I used linen then honed off Asagi (30K plus grit IMO) and skipped pressed wool and just leather and feels a little different. Not sure how bad it degrades but now I'm curious to try a few more.
if your stone is a good one you should be able to feel the difference by testing off the hone, then stropping with linen and leather vs leather only.
Thanks for that mate!
It's very interesting. I will give this a go next time I use my Japanese stone... I usually do both linen/leather. I will do leather only next time.
Thanks for the information Gents.
In a word... Yes. Stropping will also work off burrs and smooth the edge. You're going to strop before you shave anyway, right?
Just curious Stefan is that with the Kanayama linen or any linen ?
I used to think my Kanayama was a bit aggresive but after breaking it in & lightening up on my strokes even more I don't see or feel any degradation.
