My Gert Lush Rolls Imperial No.2 1950 Set

This set comes with a corduroy pouch, strop paste in a bakelite pot,two blades and a bakelite blade case.
The set had one previous owner (God rest his soul) from new and was barely used.

It's still unclear how Rolls managed to make and sell a razor for 30 years that simply wasn't sharp enough and that everyone discarded after using once.

So this was the ideal set to experiment with - I pasted the strop with the OEM paste and rather than hone the almost unused blades externally I honed the first one in the case after soaking the hone in petroleum jelly over night.

The result was just as good as using the lapping film.

So paste the strop, soak the hone in vaseline and you're good to go!

C'mon, give it a go...

Brilliant... I shall do the same with one of mine. No OEM paste, but iron oxide, or would you suggest the green stuff...? How many strokes to gone and strop...?

prairie-dad said:

Brilliant... I shall do the same with one of mine. No OEM paste, but iron oxide, or would you suggest the green stuff...? How many strokes to gone and strop...?

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Definitely use the ferric oxide not the chromium, 20 laps on the hone then 40 on the strop for the first shave but then just 20 on the strop alone for every subsequent shave until the blade needs rehoning.

Brian over on TOST got 21 shaves on a blade before it needed rehoning, largely due to the magic of the pasted strop

It did work, it was just reliant on the paste to pull it over the top. I am guessing they set a bevel on it at the factory, the case created a micro bevel and then the paste wrung that last bit more out of it. I'd like to get my hands on an american hone co rolls razor drop in replacement hone. they made a 1:1 replacement hone and that is exciting because they made some legendary barber hones so assuming they went their own way with the recipe vs trying to duplicate the oem, it could be good.

most of the ones I buy have a tremendous amount of that red paste caked into them so guys did employ it. Probably why they felt they could get away with that wretched cork strop media at the end.

That's very interesting about the American replacement hone.

And I like to hone the blades flat outside of the case so that a secondary bevel is generated in the case and it gives a great edge

I'm guessing it is mega rare....

But if it is made like their other stuff, it would probably murder the stock hone...

Wow! I want one...

Good luck... I am in new york and have never seen one. I've seen replacement oem hones but always broken because they are in paper boxes

Very cool, Marcus. Thanks for the post.

BSAGuy said:

Very cool, Marcus. Thanks for the post.

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Yeah, very interesting. So, this strop was used to sharpen a proprietary Rolls blade, not a standard SE carbon blade that would benefit from stropping? If so, I totally agree with the OP about them managing to sell this thing for so long!

SensorEx said:

Yeah, very interesting. So, this strop was used to sharpen a proprietary Rolls blade, not a standard SE carbon blade that would benefit from stropping? If so, I totally agree with the OP about them managing to sell this thing for so long!

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Its a whole razor system small and compact not a blade sharpner the rectangle of metal is the blade and slides onto the handle. The blade itself would probably last 60 years of daily use or more.

I think what he means is that they all seem to be new as the orignal owners would use them a couple times and then put them away because they couldent get them sharp enough to shave. So how did they continue to sell an unusable product for so long.

Got it. Looks like mjclark managed to get a shave-worthy edge with the original case hone thingie after treating it with petroleum jelly.
Crazy stuff, Man!

You can get it going with the paste... The NOS looking ones I have look like no paste was implemented, and the well loved ones I have had that had sharp blades still had a fair bit of residue from the rolls strop dressing...

I'd go so far as to say were you to never let the blade slip out of tune, it would easily last a lifetime... I had one that was a daily razor for decades and it lost minimal height... The Darwin system relied on two different paste grits on a flipping strop and you were to hone it outside the case.

kcb5150 said:

I'd go so far as to say were you to never let the blade slip out of tune, it would easily last a lifetime... I had one that was a daily razor for decades and it lost minimal height... The Darwin system relied on two different paste grits on a flipping strop and you were to hone it outside the case.

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Yes - I had a Darwin SE. It is a beautiful piece of British instrument making and a joy to use.
One side of the strop was meant to be pasted with chromium oxide for sharpening and the other with ferric oxide for polishing/finishing.

But the Darwin has a full guard and shaves a lot like a Wilkinson Empire.
It doesn't give the perfect shave that I get from the simpler Rolls.