What does the secondary cotton strop do / How does it supplement a regular leather strop.
Cotton Strop?
- Thread starter madcap3693
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I use it to dry and clean the edge after shaving. Note, there are many different types of non-leather strops, including cotton.
The secondary strop can be a ness entail tool in your process. I currently use nylon webbing and it does most of the heavy lifting. The leather is the icing on the cake.
Some people think it helps improve the edge, others think it only cleans/dries the edge and prolongs the life of the leather side and blade, others think it does nothing at all.
Personally I mainly use it for reason 2, but believe you can do without.
Personally I mainly use it for reason 2, but believe you can do without.
Says the guy with the fire hose linen that he will never part with.
My experience on this is that genuine flax linen will improve an edge, but a cotton second component only cleans and dries the edge. Not that cleaning and drying is a small deal. I definitely prefer any residual lather, dead skin, whisker left overs be cleaned off on a second component rather than on my good leathers! If I look at a rinsed edge under magnification I often see that a bit of something was left behind. By habit now after a good rinse I carefully wipe the blade. Then, to make double sure everything is cleaned off it gets laps on the linen followed by leather before being put away.
Yep, differing opinions here but my opinion is that linen and canvas are both abrasive and do more to sharpen / restore the edge than leather. Cotton (belting, denim) and felt do nothing in my experience other than of course to perhaps clean and dry the blade but that is easily done with a rinse and towel wipe anyway. I would say linen is slightly abrasive and canvas, at least the stuff Kanoyama sells, is pretty aggressive. Leather smooths and polishes the edge that the linen or canvas created.
Brian
Brian
I was always told the cotton was to heat the steel to get it ready for the leather. in addition to cleaning and drying. it does heat the blade and as forest gump said that's all I know about that.
The old time barbers did not strop fast and use linen strops for no reason at all. That is not to say that their way was the only way. We have found many ways to get fine edges on our razors.
I went several years shaving, honing, stropping, and thinking that the linen component was mostly worthless. I found otherwise one day while working on a razor important to me, that kept getting microscopic chips. In frustration, and thinking about the old barbers, I grabbed up the nearest cloth strop and started stropping away. After some 40-50 laps, I noted that the razor was cutting paper (my long time test method) much smoother and quieter. I put about 30 more laps on and shave tested the razor. It was by far better than I had been able to get it before. I attempted this stropping on the next 10-12 razors I honed, and all but one shaved very well off just the linen, even a couple I had only honed to 9K. Bare with me, I am getting there.
There was some discussion here about heating the blade in water. There is temperature and there is quantity of heat. Hot water will never be hotter than 212 degrees. It has been said that the lit end of a cigarette is hot enough to melt steel. Many of us would think this is preposterous, as a lit cigarette can be easily extinguished on a thin piece of metal but put that lit cigarette into a ball of steel wool and it will melt the very thin steel that cannot dissipate the heat fast enough. I propose that similar heat can be created on the very thin edge of a razor, with a cloth strop.
After having the success with the cloth strop explained above, I was perplexed about what was happening, so I ordered a 500X usb microscope. I had a 100x, but it didn't show me enough. I have included pictures below. Can it be? The second picture shows some wiggle along the edge. The wiggles had been very tiny jagged chips, that remained jagged thru honing to 12K and stropping on another strop. After this process, the chips became little wiggles in a realtively smooth edge, and the razor shaved as though there were no defect at all. Comments? Questions? The pictures are almost exactly 1mm wide.
2nd picture. Wiggles had been jagged tiny chips. Again, picture is 1mm width of blade.
Enjoy. Have plenty more pics for doubters.
I went several years shaving, honing, stropping, and thinking that the linen component was mostly worthless. I found otherwise one day while working on a razor important to me, that kept getting microscopic chips. In frustration, and thinking about the old barbers, I grabbed up the nearest cloth strop and started stropping away. After some 40-50 laps, I noted that the razor was cutting paper (my long time test method) much smoother and quieter. I put about 30 more laps on and shave tested the razor. It was by far better than I had been able to get it before. I attempted this stropping on the next 10-12 razors I honed, and all but one shaved very well off just the linen, even a couple I had only honed to 9K. Bare with me, I am getting there.
There was some discussion here about heating the blade in water. There is temperature and there is quantity of heat. Hot water will never be hotter than 212 degrees. It has been said that the lit end of a cigarette is hot enough to melt steel. Many of us would think this is preposterous, as a lit cigarette can be easily extinguished on a thin piece of metal but put that lit cigarette into a ball of steel wool and it will melt the very thin steel that cannot dissipate the heat fast enough. I propose that similar heat can be created on the very thin edge of a razor, with a cloth strop.
After having the success with the cloth strop explained above, I was perplexed about what was happening, so I ordered a 500X usb microscope. I had a 100x, but it didn't show me enough. I have included pictures below. Can it be? The second picture shows some wiggle along the edge. The wiggles had been very tiny jagged chips, that remained jagged thru honing to 12K and stropping on another strop. After this process, the chips became little wiggles in a realtively smooth edge, and the razor shaved as though there were no defect at all. Comments? Questions? The pictures are almost exactly 1mm wide.
2nd picture. Wiggles had been jagged tiny chips. Again, picture is 1mm width of blade.
Enjoy. Have plenty more pics for doubters.
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Figured I better answer some questions on the front end. The edge can be further refined. There is reason to believe the edge is more durable, still limited, than a normally finished edge. I personally have gotten as many as five shaves from a razor finished this way with no stropping once put into service, before I could tell that there was any degradation of the edge. Have had others that shaved with this edge tell me that the razor had a fine shave, in which they rarely if ever felt the sharpness of the edge, other than it easily dispatched with their beard. Show this to your friends. I welcome nay sayers, and am ready to discuss methods.
Interesting discussion, and anything strop related that includes such great magnification pictures will get plenty of interest. I don't agree with the heat hypothesis, but need to think about a rebuttal. I think you should start a new thread with this as it is a bit off topic and more people may see your post if it wasn't in a thread titled "Cotton strop?".
For the sake of discussion, let's separate the observation from the explanation. Linen strops are very effective at burnishing steel and keenness can be improved this way. Anyone who hones with a Coticule will be familiar with this effect. I think your observation is valid.
I would agree that burnishing (plastic flow) would progress more quickly at elevated temperature. However, a carbon steel blade is an excellent thermal conductor. I understand your steel wool analogy; however, conduction is limited to one dimension in that case where a blade conducts in two dimensions and therefore much more efficiently. As an example, If you set your razor edge down on a warm surface, you will find that the entire blade warms fairly rapidly.
Also, what do the pictures show?
Sorry for the delayed reply. Thought I had it set up to message me daily of replies.
For bluesman, I do not know how to turn this into a new thread and keep the replies. If anyone can direct me?
HonerSimpson
I have several other cloth strops, including a tubular cotton, which gives a very fine edge when stropped relative fast and light. I only have one cloth strop that is capable of the results in the pics. The effect seems cumulative, in that 30 laps may not get you there but another 20-30 may very well be enough. If indeed there is metal flow (the fact that chips turn into wiggles seems to indicate this), it only appears to be at the extreme edge. The heat certainly is dissipated beyond that very thin extreme edge. The strop is held very tightly and the stropping fast and light. I would think the strop is contacting most of the bevel, but only appears to make a difference at the very edge. The entire picture is only 1mm of blade edge. The 'burnished' part maybe .007mm, as suggested by another pic I have not posted.
I have experimented a great deal with this. The other cloth strops I have do not produce what appears as a 'bead' and do not turn chips into wiggles. I shaved with this razor BTW. It shaved completely smooth, with no indication of the defects in the edge. The material is a fine nylon or synthetic nylon. Comments from some trying it have included "But with your edges I can attack my whiskers at slightly different angles as if I had a small safety razor in my hands: quick, smooth, easy and confident with no fear of being cut—with a 7/8[SUP]th[/SUP] Greaves. Again, it feels somehow “rounded” but sharp at the same time" and from a 30 year straight veteran " I finally got around to trying one of the last two razors you sent. How did you hone them? I swear I got the best shave I’ve ever had. It was truly incredible. I thought I knew what a sharp razor was but I may not have until today."
I cannot prove anything about the edge except what the pictures seem to show, and the fact that I have not been able to reproduce this with other strops. I have asked someone going thru metallurgy school to show the pics to his instructors and ask for their expertise. No help so far. Open to suggestions and/or comments.
Yall have a great day,
As you can see, glare gets bad nearer the light source and makes the 'bead' look wider. But some detail is visible toward the right side. If you have used a microscope on edges, I expect you will agree that perfectly fine shaving razors are rarely this smooth.
While I like linen and cotton for stropping, nothing so far has come close to my TM horsehide and steerhide strops impregnated with .1 and .05 micron CBN and Diamond. 5-10 laps on each and my razor pops HHT root in and the shave is nice and smooth.
In my regimen the cloth component is to "clean" the edge before going to leather, and post shave it is to dry off the bevel.
In my regimen the cloth component is to "clean" the edge before going to leather, and post shave it is to dry off the bevel.
Do you have a before and after picture of a micro-chip, taken at the same location?
Can you tell us anything about this special strop? Is it new or vintage?
My first thought is that it is "contaminated" with some abrasive.
Can you tell us anything about this special strop? Is it new or vintage?
My first thought is that it is "contaminated" with some abrasive.
I'm still a doubter on the heat theory however, I am not able to reconcile the fact that your photo's seem to show metal flow at the edge and none farther down on the bevel. I would expect that an abrasive would polish the body of the bevel as well.
OK, I think I've found evidence that heat is not part of the process. In the picture showing the microchips turned to "Wiggles" the troughs show the same amount of metal flow as the more exposed areas of the edge. Geometry would cause the bottoms of the chips to be thicker and also better at dissipating heat through conduction to the surrounding steel.
