Finishing on balsa strop?

Hello all,

I am honing a few razors at the moment and I was wondering about your thoughts on finishing the process on a croxed balsa strop?

The first couple I honed I always finished on the green then red side of the poor mans balsa strop, however nowadays I omit this step because I couldn't feel much of a difference.

I hone with film up to .3 um with pikopaper and a dab of lather.

After the .3 you can definitely go to leather, but try it and see. Any paste on balsa is more aggressive than other softer substrates IMO.

If you're not seeing any improvement, then there's no point to it.
I think your last film is finer than those pastes, but that doesn't always mean a whole lot.
Your tests are what matters most.
The red pastes I've tried were not as fine as the green but they imparted a bit of smooth after the Crox.

Thanks for replies, I reckoned as much. Honed up a WB that I got from the bay with good result

Just my personal opinion but I believe at some point, the abrasives get so fine that no further improvement can be felt by us humans. We speak pretty cavalierly about the various grades but please bear in mind that 0.3 micron approx. 100,000 grit, which is fantastically fine by anyone's standards. The red side of that balsa hone is 0.1 micron, or approx. 200,000 grit. Can anyone really notice such small differences in such [already tiny] things?

Plus if you are happy with an edge on a razor and find additional steps makes no difference, it is certainly not worth doing just going by logic. ??

Brian

Kurrso said:

Hello all,

I am honing a few razors at the moment and I was wondering about your thoughts on finishing the process on a croxed balsa strop?

The first couple I honed I always finished on the green then red side of the poor mans balsa strop, however nowadays I omit this step because I couldn't feel much of a difference.

I hone with film up to .3 um with pikopaper and a dab of lather.

Click to expand...

0.1um Diamond certainly adds quite a noticeable amount of 'feel' to an edge - so there's that.
Many abrasives do show a limiting factor due to friability and possibility other factors though.

As for logic - yep - don't fix what ain't broke.
Unless you like to break stuff.

I agree. .1 micron dia or cbn can really push an edge to a very uncomfortable place IMO anyway. I messed with film to that level also and it created a very harsh edge.

Another thing to remember is that the OP is changing abrasive type: the green is chromium oxide and the red is iron oxide so not only are the grit sizes different but the characteristics of the abrasives themselves are quite different.

Diamond and CBN are different in that they are much more aggressive (both of them) and they retain their characteristics across a grit range. There is also a great deal of difference in how the same abrasive, diamond in my own personal experience, behaves when used while statically held (film) vs. a charged substrate that can both move and allow grit movement (wood, leather, etc.). But I really do find the difference in finishing on 0.5 micron diamond film and 0.1 micron diamond film to be almost indistinguishable, while using charged balsa <may> make a difference, I find it is also very small between 0.25 micron and 0.1 micron.

Brian

Gamma said:

0.1um Diamond certainly adds quite a noticeable amount of 'feel' to an edge - so there's that.
Many abrasives do show a limiting factor due to friability and possibility other factors though.

As for logic - yep - don't fix what ain't broke.
Unless you like to break stuff.

Click to expand...

The abrasive cocktail most definitely plays into the recipe - so I won't rule out anyone's ability to discern differences when changing that recipe. I don't know that comparing diamond spray to diamond films makes much sense unless the exact same diamonds are in the spray and the film - I'd not expect that to be the case, but possibly so. At any rate - the difference in how a fixed or loose abrasive performs hardly needs an introduction.

The characteristics associated with diamond sprays is semi-consistent within particle type per substrate only IME. Even then - only to a point and while the characteristics are similar the end results have proven to be like most types of abrasives; finer 'grits' yield finer edges.

I would say that someone not sensing a difference between 0.1um and .25um diamond sprays on the same substrate is missing something somewhere.

To be honest - I don't even know why diamond sprays are in this thread. TheOP is using some form of red paste which is prob Feox; how fine, I don't know. I don't think he mentioned the microns.

As far as being able to sense a difference when using different sub-micron abrasives - yes those differences can be felt by some.

Leather has no grit and people feel the effects of stropping.

Long ago JimR traveled down the road where subtle differences from sub-micron abrasive particles can't be felt.

Personally - I can feel an extremely light breeze or even just the slightest bit of moisture in the air on my skin.
So I don't think its too far of a stretch to believe that someone can sense the difference between finish honing on 1 or 3um Feox or whatever.

Thats just my my take on it - someone can prove otherwise to themselves I suppose.

I'm pretty sure the abrasive red paste I have is around 3um. But I do know that FeOx powders in finer grades are also available. Whether or not any manufacturer makes a paste out of a finer powder than what I have - That's entirely possible but I've not seen it. I Haven't put much effort into sourcing Feox though.

Since its not relevant to the discussion, and possibly a violation of the TOU, I'll pass on responding to the derogatory comment/question about my Father, origin, education, etc.

I believe I can tell a difference in keeness with .1 and .05 micron myself.

It's OK to disagree with an opinion, but ungentlemanly conduct will not be tolerated. We have a zero tolerance policy whose intricacies are in a sticky on the main straight razor forum page.

Oh, no problem on my end. I did not care for the implication that my perceptions are not adequate nor the insinuation that after being wrong, I compensated it with self- delusion but I am certainly not complaining. Surely it was ungentlemanly but not grossly so IMO, and I am not asking for any moderation be done on my behalf.

Does gentlemanly behavior include treating others with respect? Just curious.

As to the difference between 0.1 and 0.05 micron grit abrasives, I personally do not have anything finer than 0.1 micron, and that is because I have not found a significant difference between 0.1 and coarser grits and therefore have not even tried finer grits. In the end, I believe significant stropping on plain leather yields the actual finish most of us use. Unless of course one uses a razor directly from the last hone w/out stropping; I have done this too but only with 0.1 micron CBN.

Brian

Kentos said:

I believe I can tell a difference in keeness with .1 and .05 micron myself.

It's OK to disagree with an opinion, but ungentlemanly conduct will not be tolerated. We have a zero tolerance policy whose intricacies are in a sticky on the main straight razor forum page.

Click to expand...

Finishing on PicoPaper imparts a degree of convexity to the edge. So does paste on a hanging strop. Following that up with balsa, which is a flat, unyielding surface, is likely not doing much, if anything to the edge.

If you want to try a balsa cromox edge, leave out the stage that leave convexity, and then go to the balsa strop to finish the edge.