Coarse strop.. thing... is this for honing?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...6303&_trksid=p3907.m32&_trkparms=tab=Watching

"Tan strap is coarse to help shaping the blade"

"This is a new professional razor sharpening strop with two straight razors. It has two separate straps. The tan strap is used to give your razor perfect sharp edge whereas the Tan leather strap helps give your razor the perfect shape (eliminate nicks out of the blade)."

... is this for honing the blade or what? What are they talking about here? I'm looking at a 4000/8000 Norton, later, but if I can get started using this to hone at first then well good.

(Yes, for those that are paying attention, I'm learning double-edge and straight at the same time, different days.)

One strop is tan and the other looks black to me so I don't know what the seller means. Don't even waste your money on this stuff. There's no such leather that can remove nicks in a reasonable amount of time unless a paste is applied to it. The coarser side of a leather strop can serve as a canvas substitute. While it does do some marginal honing due to the abrasiveness of the surface, it is certainly not a substitute for pastes or hones.

I know the initial costs of straight razors can be imposing but don't skimp on quality. If you do, your shaves may suffer and you may unfairly sour on straight razors altogether.

Its probably Pakistani garbage. Don't buy it. The fact the seller claims the strop will remove nicks shows he doesn't know what he's talking about.

It all seems too good to be true and in this case it is.

blue

The purpose of the strop is to clean and polish the bevels on your razor's edge before you shave. Even if this item is useful for that purpose (which, at the price, I doubt) it will certainly not hone or remove nicks from your razor.

Best Regards

Graham

What you need: Two or three decent stones (do your research to determine what you think is going to work for you) and a Tony Miller Apprentice strop. This is not the only way to do things, but IMO will work very well for a reasonable cost.

I have this strop. I really like it.

The tan strop DOES NOT HONE, but I find 3-5 passes on it before the black strop significantly decreases the amount of passes I have to make on the black strop to achieve the same results.

Ex. What I can do in 50 passes on only the black strop, I can do with 5 passes on the tan, and 15 passes on the black.

The tan strop really isn't coarse. it's just tough. I would recommend this strop, but not as a honing substitute by any means.

EDIT: look for the same strop without the two garbage straights. I got this strop for $15, plus $6.99 to ship it from Maryland.

kestrel said:

blue

The purpose of the strop is to clean and polish the bevels on your razor's edge before you shave. Even if this item is useful for that purpose (which, at the price, I doubt) it will certainly not hone or remove nicks from your razor.

Best Regards

Graham

Click to expand...

With a nonsensical writeup like that, I would just totally ignore the vendor. at the very least, they obviously don't have a clue and at most are seriously misrepresenting what leather will do.