I don't have a Rolls but I have a Darwin that looks very similar. I'll have to pull it out and have a look at it again.
Thanks Fritz! Good stuff! I'll file this for future reference, since I don't have any of that yet. The strop and hone on the Rolls I have look to be in great shape. I contitioned the strop before using it. I'll be getting some hones and strops in the future when I get more into straight razors. How about using a diamond paste in the Rolls strop (an extra, of course so I can keep one in natrual condition)?
I have a couple of Rolls Razors, and have tried using them with little success. Those darned things are scarier than the str8's I use often.:ashamed001 Ken.
(And also @ Michael): My original post assumed your blade was in about the worst possible shape. If it's not that bad, then perhaps the built-in hone and strop will get it sharp enough. However, the built-in hone is a pretty slow cutter, and is intended to touch up the edge when the strop no longer will. I know that Rolls sold extra blades, in a little case. (I have two.) This implies to me that at some point your blade would have to be honed by a barber, or perhaps the factory had an exchange service for this. After all, this blade is nothing more than a short piece of a 7/8 wide 1/2 hollow ground straight razor with a funny handle. Re: pastes. The hone is pretty much a barber's hone, which is about like 2-3 micron. I'm not sure 0.5 micron paste would do it that much more good, although couldn't hurt. But if you can't get it sharp enough to shave at all with the built-in hone, then the paste isn't going to help.
