I’m ready to call it quits on trying to strop a stainless-steel double edge razor blade. For now, at least.
The only thing I’m fairly sure about is that effectively honing or stropping a stainless-steel blade will probably require some sort of abrasive. But … if I abrade away enough of the razor edge, the blade will no longer function (see prior post).
So it’s possible that this has been a fool’s errand. Or it’s possible that I don’t have a good grasp of how much damage can and cannot be repaired by honing or stropping a stainless-steel razor blade.
Here’s a sequence of photographs, starting with a beaten-up blade, and ending with a blade that was honed using Brasso, an abrasive metal cleaner.
1: Original condition, note the nicks in the leading edge of the blade
2: After honing in a large-diameter piece of borosilicate glass. This was a PYREX measuring cup, and best guess, that’s about the diameter that antique glass hones would have matched. I’m not really seeing a whole lot of change in the nicks.
3: Hone on medium-diameter borosilicate. I’m certain this was smaller diameter than implied by antique glass razor blade hones. I’m still seeing no marked improvement in the nicks.
4: Hone on very mall diameter borosilicate. Maybe some of the nicks look a bit less sharp. Maybe that’s my imagination.
5: Leather strop, dry, 20 strokes of the razor, on 6″ strop. The surface is nicely polished, but the edge is still a mess.
6: Extensive honing using Brasso on medium- and small-diameter borosilicate. The abrasives in the Brasso were evident (it felt gritty to move the blade against the glass), and maybe this smoothed down the nicks in the leading edge of the blade.
Here’s my take on all of that.
Rubbing these blades across any of the tested surfaces, without abrasives, didn’t seem to do much. Plausibly, there’s something happening to the absolute edge of the blade. But in terms of smoothing out those (almost microscopic) nicks in the blade, it was no go. I think that’s consistent with expert advice to use abrasives when honing a stainless straight-razor.
Honing with abrasive Brasso on curved glass maybe did something, maybe not. Definitely maybe kinda smoothed over some edges on the nicks in the blade.
But, at the end of the day, if you compare the rough, pitted edge in the first couple of photos, to the edge in the last photo, I’m not sure I’ve done much.
Conclusion.
For now, I’m stumped.
First, it’s possible that I simply don’t understand what honing or stropping is capable of doing to the edge of the blade. Maybe a blade like the one above is beyond help. In which case, I’m not sure what honing or stropping is going to do for me, for a stainless blade. Because if the blade is in much better shape than that, chances are it shaves fine.
Second, no wet-shaving experts try to hone stainless blades. It’s obvious, from reading well-informed discussion on wet shaving forums such as Badger and Blade, that wet-shaving afficianados will, occasionally, strop old-fashioned carbon steel razor blades. But nobody strops stainless razor blades. To the contrary, every mention of stainless and stropping/honing boils down to “they last longer, but you can’t strop them back into shape, the way you can with a carbon-steel blade”. So, not even die-hard wet shaving fans mention any way to strop stainless razor blades.
Third, I already noted that stropping died out when stainless steel took over the blade market. I am certainly that traditional stropping methods should not work (or work well, or work easily) on stainless, owing at least to the greater hardness of the steel. Even straight razors — where stainless steel razors can be stropped — require use of an abrasive. That tells me that traditional materials used to strop carbon steel just won’t cut it.
I’m really left with just two more things I can try.
First, I can add abrasives to the leather strop. Plausibly, the combination of abrasives and the pliable backing will carry those abrasives into the nicks in the blade and scour them out.
The drawback to that is that the only way I have to strop a blade is to run it over the leather strop while it’s in my razor. (Even that’s not ideal — I’m pretty sure the razor blade does not sit at the correct angle when I do that.) In any case, I don’t want to subject my razor to the abrasives in Brasso or similar. So I need to buy or rig up something to hold the blade, if I do that.
Second, I can buy one of those mystery devices that claims to extend the life of razor blade cartridges. (reference, reference). Those work by stropping the stainless-steel blades contained in the razor cartridges. Some people swear they work. Others say they don’t. The real question is whether I want to spend $10 on something that I’m betting is a scam.
When all is said and done, if I get motivated, I’ll try one more thing. I’ll buy or make a device to hold the razor blade at the correct angle, and try stropping with a leather strop and the proper abrasives.
At that point, if that doesn’t do it, then I’m done. I’ll judge that stropping or honing a stainless-steel razor blade is a fool’s errand.
