Ed Huntress wrote:

Slightly of thread, I have an old antique straight razor and need a strop
to sharpen it.

So what is so soecial about a strop?

Isn't it just a piece of hard yellow lattago leather?
Or is the something more to it?


I got mine from a barber, who ordered it for me from his supplier. It's hard
leather on one side, a piece of coarse canvas of some kind on the other. On
his recommendation, I charged the leather side with red rouge, but I don't
think it really does anything. The leather side basically just turns the
edge.

I used to use whiting ("white diamond," which of course is not diamond at
all) to charge the canvas side, which is what it was charged with when I got
it, but now I use stainless steel polish. That definitely *does* do
something -- that polish cuts pretty quickly.

My two straight razors don't get any use since I shaved off my beard, but I
used them frequently a couple of decades ago. My black hard Arkansas stone
is the one I used to sharpen them, before stropping. If you don't sharpen
them on a hard stone, my experience is that the edge gets out of shape from
stropping alone, at least when you use abrasive on the strop.

I actually prefer to use a piece of tempered Masonite, charged with
stainless polish, for stropping them. After I arrived at that I started
using the Masonite and stainless polish to finish many of my edged tools.

--
Ed Huntress




As usual, timely ahd helpful.

Thanks Ed.


--

Richard

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