As a follow up to my May 3, 2021 post I can now report on the Feather carbon steel blades in a Valet Auto Strop model C using the original, and lightly reconditioned strop. The metal bracket holding the strop failed but I fixed it with some solder. The string also failed and I replaced it with a section of waxed brown shoe lace. Everything looks original. I have now put more than one dozen 1.5 pass shaves on a single blade. I will typically use the VAS when I am in a hurry and don't have time for a SR shave. I usually do only ten laps or less with the strop before each shave, and rinse the razor with the blade "open" and give the edge a light one pass strop on a towel before putting it away in the shave den to dry. Here is my report: The very first shave with a fresh blade (w/o stropping) was surprisingly rough-enough to want to make me give up the experiment, but I soldiered on. The next shave after stropping was better and the third shave better yet. The blade seems to have settled down to something like a Feather stainless steel SE blade after about the second shave. After that there seems to be no degradation in the blade feel in shaves 3-12. I am optimistic that this will be the case up to 40-50 shaves as I believe the original instructions (I read some on line) used to suggest. If that is the case, then the Valet Auto Strop may simply be the greatest SE razor ever made. Will report further at that time.
If you want to try another test get some carbon steel gem blades made for shaving. You can buy a few singles at tryablade.com or if you want to buy a 10 pack CVS might still have them online. Even if stropping them doesn't help, they are really smooth shaving blades. I personally like them better than the coated stainless steel blades but am just too lazy to use them on a regular basis because of the rust issues if you don't dry them between shaves.
