First I select a piece of balsa 12" x 3" and 1/4" thick, and glue it to 3/4" thick acrylic. The balsa has to be stabilized before lapping. Then the lapping, on a full sheet of wet/dry (use dry) glued to a polished marble tile or 12x12 acrylic. I use about half as much as a pinto bean on the first treatment. I dot it around and rub it in good, then wipe it down good with an old tshirt so there is no coating. I hold the assembled and treated balsa in hand, vertically, so it is easy to apply very faint pressure. Typically I use 50 laps per stage. Also, 50 laps on the .1u only, after every shave, and I never have to re-hone. Unless I just feel like it. And I usually don't. Anyway, after 30 to 50 razors, it is usually time to reapply, and I generally use half as much or a bit more, than the initial treatment. After maybe 3 applications the balsa needs re-lapping either cause it is not flat or it is loaded with so much swarf that it has little beneficial effect. The normal progression after 12k stone or 1u lapping film is .5u, .25u, and .1u. I do have balsa set up with 1u, 2.5u, 3.5u, 5u, 10u, and 20u as well but I seldom use them. 1u is very close to a 12k Naniwa and so is not much needed. I like to maintain the more precise bevel from a well lapped synthetic stone or lapping film on acrylic, up through the 12k region, and only then hit the balsa, but YMMV. The balsa has a very open grain and so it accepts the diamond quite well. It is slightly resilient but yields less than you would think, due to the very light (less than the weight of a razor) pressure. Of course everyone has a leather strop he can spare for pasted stropping, but few people keep 3/4" cast acrylic sheet or 1/4" balsa laying around waiting to be made into something useful. So, pasting leather or fabric is often done, and it is capable of some edge improvement and does help prolong the time between hones. But once you try properly set up and properly used balsa, you will never go back to hanging linen or leather or felt or whatever. As for pics, I can post tomorrow if you remind me, but they will just be the same pics as on my growleymonster.com site where I have a few tutorials on this or that or the other.
BTW 3 micron is roughly equivelant to 8k. Do you mean .3u, maybe? 1u is about 14k depending on what grit scale you are using. So no real benefit to the 1u paste, after 12k stone or 1u film.
Thanks Slash. I checked what I currently have for paste, and it is definitely 3 micron. What is your opinion on getting the strop chalk, rather than a paste? I read your website on stropping with balsa - very informative and detailed! The balsa strops I've seen for sale always have leather glued to the balsa paddle, so I was surprised to see you strop directly on the balsa. I want to try your method, so I'll start by getting some .5, 0.25, and 0.1 micron diamond paste or chalk, and order some acrylic pieces. I was curious to know your opinion on how you thought barbers kept their blades sharp hundreds of years ago? Did they use just use stones once a week, and a leather strop (without paste) before every shave? I can't imagine stones hundreds of years ago were as high quality and consistent as what's around today. (And how could they scientifically tell the difference between 8k, 12k, etc?) Or maybe people weren't that finicky about their shaves back then?
Honestly, I think we are spoiled by modern sharpening technology. Our Great-Great-Grandfathers did not enjoy the kind of shaves that it is possible to get today. I can get DFS in one pass. Our ancestors probably got the same in three passes even from a professional barber. A coticule was about as good as it got, for finishing, I imagine. I don't know how long CrOx has been in use, but certainly it predates diamond paste. I believe it was common to apply paste to a hanging strop, a technique that we pretty much know not to use today. It was probably common to touch up a razor with either a barber hone or other finisher, or the pasted strop, daily. Barbers generally had several razors. The barber hone was probably the first practical synthetic finisher, and you have probably tried one of those by now. You often see them for around $15 on fleabay. The three-line Swaty is the most common out of the ones regarded today as somewhat useable. Finish with lather or dish soap solution or glycerine solution and the results are underwhelming but it will shave if you do your part. I am sure the 8k Norton when it was introduced, was looked upon by barbers as a gift from the ancient shave gods. The very precisely manufactured Naniwa and other stones are a recent thing, as well as the wide availability of carefully quarried, cut, graded, and lapped Arkies and similar quartz-heavy stones. They have been around for over a hundred years, but quality used to be hit or miss. Japan has more of a tradition in fine natural stones, and I am sure that the best barbers kept excellent edges on their razors, going back a hundred or maybe a few hundred years. No doubt there were also a lot of barbers with less inspiring edges, too, but I imagine the best of them were excellent. I don't know when Jnats became a thing in this country, but I would imagine after the post-WW2 occupation. Keep in mind that just because it is a Japanese natural doesn't mean it is a good razor finisher. Lapping film had no real raison d'etre until the digital age and fiber optic communications. It has been a great thing for straight razor owners who self-hone, particularly beginners. But that wasn't around pre-internet. Likewise there was not much call for carefully and tightly graded diamond powder or paste historically, and that is a new thing. The internet has brought about a true Information Age, and so honing and stropping knowledge has spread and become universally available. Even as recently as the 80's when I first started straight shaving, knowledge was pretty spotty. My shaving journey got off to a pretty rocky start, with no mentor and no internet, and tips from barbers who already in that day were becoming even LESS skilled at shaving due to the universal practice of shaving at home every morning with DE, SE, injector, etc razors and the very sharp disposable blades available since the early 70's. I started out with a new and very twisty Dovo that my then unskilled hands never managed to get a proper edge on, with the tools that I had which I thought were adequate. For several years my shaves left me looking like I had spent the morning sorting wildcats and sleeping on a poison ivy pillow. My breakthrough was finding a vintage razor with a somewhat usable edge on it, along with a barber who was a pretty clever honer who didn't mind dribbling bits of knowledge into my head as he shaved me with much better result than I had been used to. But still, it was the internet that really brought me up to speed. Now, if it is being done, I read about it or see it on youtube. We actually have information overload, these days, and one click ordering for exotic honing goods. There are guys with a hundred different hones out there. Or more. Old school barbers had like two or three. Lapped? LOL! Dished like a soup bowl, as often as not. The thing is, 150 years ago, the best shave you could get was the best you could get. No comparison to what you CAN get, today, by doing it yourself or finding the rare barber who is a true artist with the razor. Our ancestors didn't know any better because there wasn't any better, and they were satisfied with what they got. That's my take on it. I am not an expert on shaving/honing history though.
About chalk, powder, slurry, paste, etc all I can tell you is DIAMOND PASTE of the appropriate grit, applied correctly, works fabulously and honestly I don't think you will find ANYTHING better. Feel free to try. That's how we find out new stuff. On my site there is a link to my OTHER site where there are more in depth tutorials including pasted balsa strop setup and usage. Also there is the infamous "Newbie Honing Compendium" thread on B&B. I will post similar here, some day, but it is almost a book so not now. Not sure if posting the link to my other site is allowed here. So many forums, so many rules. IMHO 3u diamond is not a very useful grit for honing razors. It is roughly 8k. I think you should use stones or lapping film up to the 12k or 1u stage, and then use the pasted balsa only in sub-micron range. This keeps the bevel geometrically very close to correct and precise, with only minimal effect on the geometry by the paste. The balsa is resilient but pressure is light so the deformation of the bevel is very slight and also very finite. This is where the advantage of EMBEDDED abrasive over surface abrasive comes in. And the resilient but very flat carrier surface with its wide open grain. I have tried a lot of stuff. I haven't tried every imaginable thing. What I can say for certain is I have used NOTHING that compares to diamond paste, deeply rubbed in to stabilized and lapped balsa, in a 3 stage progression, properly used. It is said that CBN is just as good, by knowledgeable guys, and I will neither dispute that nor confirm it. If you want to be certain you will get an amazing finish, do it the way I have said, with no omissions, substitutions, or freestyling. Otherwise you are on your own and you might succeed. Maybe "might succeed" is more fun than boring old "WILL succeed", I don't know. Like I said, trying new things is how we expand the communal knowledge base, so do it like you feel it, if you feel like doing it that way Techdiamondtools seems to be a good brand of paste, and of course the benchmark, Ted Pella. www.kentsupplies,com has pretty decent paste in little 20g tubs pretty cheap but they don't have .1u paste. The Chinese ebay/amazon stuff seems to be okay but really you use so little that the few bucks saved are just chimp change, so may as well stick with North American suppliers.
Thanks for another great detailed response. I'll be sure to investigate the diamond paste. Just confirming, that after every shave, you strop on the balsa, (and maybe all 3 of the balsas). Do you find this to be a lot of work to do every time you shave? Why not get a 20k or 30k stone and just use that after every shave, and not worry about pastes, setup, etc.?
Only the .1u is needed for regular maintenance. The other two are simply to bridge the gap between say a 12k finisher and the 2ook final diamond. The only work, for the post shave maintenance. is to strop on the balsa. It is already prepared. The balsa does not need more paste on it until maybe 40 to 60 sessions. No water needed. Lapping seldom needed, unlike with stones. Routinely, no more work than stropping on leather. The edge is far superior to what any stone will give you. All a stone would do for you is eliminate the need to learn something that is fairly simple. Some would consider that a benefit, I suppose. A finishing stone can make a perfectly adequate edge. The balsa is not NEEDED, but I myself think highly of it and I very much like the shaves I get from it.
Hi Slash, just wondering if you store the balsa strops in a special way? I imagine if you stack them on top of each other, the abrasive particles would get affected, or pushed further into the balsa? Should they be in individual cases (like whetstones)?
Individual cases would be great. A lot of extra work, though, so I haven't made any. I got 9 different ones so I won't be making individual boxes. Currently I simply stand them up on their long sides, not touching. When my new honing desk is finished I will have pigeonholes for all stones, balsas, and film plates. You could just lay them down not touching. It would be a good idea to cover them so dust can't settle on them, though. I don't think stacking 2 or 3 would impact them the way you envision, but it would probably lead to cross contamination. It is okay to get a small amount of finer diamond, on a balsa treated with coarser grit. But it is definitely not okay for even a trade of coarser diamond to get on a finer balsa. I even wash my hands between grits when running the progression.
OK. I imagine one could find some Tupperware to store them individually. Another question about the width of the balsa/ acrylic: If these are to be custom cut, would it be beneficial to add an extra inch in width to ensure the full length of the blade is more likely to be uniformly stropped each pass? This would eliminate the need to use a cross pattern. An extra inch in width can still be easily held in one hand (with average sized hands).
You could go a little wider, but 12" x 3" has always seemed quite adequate to me. Also balsa is easily sourced in 3" wide and 36" long pieces, enough for three setups with only two cuts. The dimension that you might want to increase is acrylic thickness. 1" costs more but is easier to hold safely. 3/4" is what I use and what most Method guys use. 1" costs more, of course. I recommend 1/4" thick balsa because it swells less than thicker stock but it can still be lapped 8 or 10 times. You should still use an x stroke, regardless. You don't have to pull the razor all the way across, just an inch or so is fine.
I chose to buy magnetic mount balsa and a metal base from from CKTG. Each strop comes in a zip lock bag. Addresses the contamination issues. Bags are available by themselves. 3x8 and 3x11 sizes are available as well as other mag mounted stropping materials. Just another option. Worth a look. Go to the sharpening supplies area. Great vendor!
Thank you for all the detailed posts. I do use pasted strops to finish and maintain between shaves. I use both paddle as well as hanging linen strops for pastes and have not had any problems using the hanging strops.
Just curious, how do you know when to add more diamond paste to the balsa? How do you know when it's time to replace the balsa? (and if you did, do you break the balsa piece off the acrylic piece, or just put a new one together?)
When 50 laps is no longer enough to keep the edge Method sharp. Usually about 60 sessions thereabouts. If you jump the gun no harm done, as long as you, as always, wipe the balsa thoroughly after pasting to remove all surface coating. I don't lap after every treatment. Maybe every 2nd or 3rd treatment I will lap. When it gets too thin (takes quite a long time) I just pry up what's left of the old balsa, clean off the glue residue with acetone, and stick another piece on the same acrylic.
If the actual strop distance is an inch or two, then would 6" balsa/acrylic blocks be fine? I ordered 12" long, 1" thick, and they're quite big.
12" is great! 1" thick is great! The long stroke gets a lot of work done quick. 1" makes it much easier to use in hand safely because it allows you to more effectively grip it without your fingertips being in the path of the razor. In the post you quoted, the "inch or so" refers to the lateral travel of the razor in the x stroke. The sideways component. You are still using the full length stroke. Yeah, it's big. That's a good thing. If stones were cheap, they would be big, too. The fact is that both acrylic and balsa are way cheaper than high quality stones and going small with acrylic and balsa is not really a great idea though of course it could be done. Half as long, probably require twice as many laps for full effect. And you would save chimp change.
