A question of stropping??

[badgeringtim]

Robin,
When you mention autosol -which of their products are you refering to? I havd a quick search on amazon and there is quite a variety which seem suitable..to me at least

Im curently happy to get a shave sharp blade quite easily, however dont get the 'popping' sharp yet. So i am looking for a next level of grit (on a budget) curently i just use emery paper and finish on a wood backed leather peice with some blue 'wood and plastic' polishing compound, i dont know how to sfind what grit this would equate to though.

Another daft question - what leather to use, i tend to go for the inside of fairly soft leathers, but have used a quite stiff artificially finished leather which seemed to work too (but didnt feel so nice) so is there somethign to considder in the type of leather used? I have not tried veg tan as it seems a bit of a waste when there are many other free sources which seem to work.

perhapse slightly off on a tangent ..

 

[robin wood]

-which of their products are you refering to?

This stuff http://www.amazon.co.uk/Autosol-Bri..._4?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&qid=1284554894&sr=8-4

Im curently happy to get a shave sharp blade quite easily, however dont get the 'popping' sharp yet. So i am looking for a next level of grit (on a budget) curently i just use emery paper and finish on a wood backed leather peice with some blue 'wood and plastic' polishing compound, i dont know how to sfind what grit this would equate to though.

Another daft question - what leather to use, i tend to go for the inside of fairly soft leathers, but have used a quite stiff artificially finished leather which seemed to work too (but didnt feel so nice) so is there somethign to considder in the type of leather used? I have not tried veg tan as it seems a bit of a waste when there are many other free sources which seem to work.

perhapse slightly off on a tangent ..

No idea what grade your current compound is but the finest common emery is 1000 and the jump from that to compound is a big jump. I recommend a 6000 stone as a good in between but it is not cheap. 1000 emery followed by autosol on a flat strop will do a fair job.

Any leather will do. The softer it is the more rounded the profile of your blade will be. Rounding off the profile (effectively making a micro convex) makes it stronger more robust edge but makes it less good for woodcarving. That is why as a woodcarver I want to use something with very little give in it to create a flat bevel. If you are cutting tomatoes, leather or whatever where you are using the edge without running the bevel on the work it does not matter and a slightly convex edge last longer.

 

[8thsinner]

I have just moved to straight razor shaving this last couple of months and I can tell you it makes a huge difference to sharpness levels.
I thought I was good at stropping before but I can barely pass the Hair hanging test yet and I am using pasted strop after a 4000k japanese slip stone. I't not recommended to use the pasted strop for beginners in straight shaving but it's currently all I have.

However, I am discovering they use a lot of different materials for strops, kangaroo, buffalo, horse and finally cow. All with good results depending on the aim and the specific leather...It's something I will need to do a lot more experimentation with.