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kanayama strop.....the next
- Thread starter stalker
- Start Date
DJKELLY
Well-Known Member
The real problem for me, Stalker, is that I can't even find out about the hht improvement of the K-linen because it is so uncomfortable to use. Other strops make a huge edge improvement and it is just easier to go back to them, but I need to take a sharp razor and prove to myself that the Kanayama is effective. To me it feels like running the blade over a wash board and it would take a leap of faith to think it was beneficial. I believe a strop of that quality would surely have an effective linen component and it is just me that hasn't learned how to use it yet. Maybe I will rectify that today. Sincerely, Denny
mhnnnnnnnn, personally, and i'm not a wizard, i arrive off the coticule with the HHT 3-4....then polish the blade with 20 laps of kanayama linen, after that i strop 100 laps with the beautiful cordovan leather for an hht 4.5/5....if you don't have a good linen , try to achieve the same result with the coticule to push a bit the hht.....i love to "stretch" the stone..
garyhaywood
Well-Known Member
DJKELLY said:
wash bord thats just how i would describe the k linen, as stalker says if you get a hht 4 of the hone, which can be done and i have many times, i don't think you'd even need linen full stop.
the problem is it s not that easy to get hht 4 of the hone.hht 2/3 for most guys would be good. this is where a good reliable linen comes in handy and brings my edges up to a 4 not very often a five , i can easily get a five with ti paste . i actauly like stropping on k linen its not a bad thing but it does not in my opinion do any thing apart from clean the edge ,and then prepare for leather, it does not offer any edge refine mant for me .tm linen does just that. i've honed then stropped k linen hht no improvemant, tm linen 60 laps later there is a big differance. i've repeated this several times. i wished the k linen worked for me ,but it just does'nt. i carn't fault the leather.hope fully bart comes up with somthing.
gary
G
Guest
Hello Gary
I have a K strop 30000 a long time.The linen of two vintage strops from my father have nothing to do with K strop.The vintsge strop linens working perfektly,both are woven in V weaving in a
natural brown/gray color,no stiff and quite thin 1,5 mm.This linen kind improves the HHT clearly.If after the coticule honing the HHT is 3 ,60 strokes on the linen transforming the edge
to 4-5 HHT.Easily you are going direct to the face.Convercely the K linen reduses the sharpness
certainly and saying this because has been tested many,many times.
Thats the reason that i chenged the linen with a 2,5 " genuine linen in V weaving fron a supplier in UK.No more investigation no more headache.I believe that this helps.
Best regards
Emmanuel
Athens
I hope it is not all Greek to you
I have a K strop 30000 a long time.The linen of two vintage strops from my father have nothing to do with K strop.The vintsge strop linens working perfektly,both are woven in V weaving in a
natural brown/gray color,no stiff and quite thin 1,5 mm.This linen kind improves the HHT clearly.If after the coticule honing the HHT is 3 ,60 strokes on the linen transforming the edge
to 4-5 HHT.Easily you are going direct to the face.Convercely the K linen reduses the sharpness
certainly and saying this because has been tested many,many times.
Thats the reason that i chenged the linen with a 2,5 " genuine linen in V weaving fron a supplier in UK.No more investigation no more headache.I believe that this helps.
Best regards
Emmanuel
Athens
I hope it is not all Greek to you
garyhaywood
Well-Known Member
seems you exp[erianced the same thing . thats what i have found that genuine linen works realy well for me.
gary
gary
garyhaywood
Well-Known Member
i should only persume he brought it from stropshop neil miller
urmas
Well-Known Member
Bart said:
Yes, I indeed made with my K linen a little experiment. Because I feel that this is bit sensitive subject, therefore I say that all what follows is only my opinion or personal point of view. By any means, I do not want to offend the producer and seller of those splendid strops... or disturb other users who like K linen as it is.
****
At first, I started to think that only cause for those uncanny noise and vibrations can be a higher points and/or unsufficent flatness of linen surface... I choose for flattening the higher points on surface bit unusual technique - I did following:
1. I soak the K linen in clean water (it was submerged for 2 days);
2. then I lightly dried the linen with towel;
3. I put the linen on flat surface and beated it carefully and evenly with suitable flat headed hammer (on both sides) - you can see and feel the difference right there;
4. I soaked linen second time for 2 days;
5. I repeated the beating process;
6. then I rub the linen surface with bottle on both sides (when linen was on the flat surface);
7. and then - I took the iron (I have one heavy old fashioned iron for such projects) and firmly ironed the linen on both sides until it was dry;
8. then I let the linen dry over night...
Success! First impressions were good - disturbing noise and vibrations are gone. Now I like my K linen. I'm quite convinced that K linen doesn't require nothing more than soaking-beating-ironing.
Pictures of K linen after my treatment:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29949251@N02/sets/72157625448556585/
******
Update:
Recently I discovered that bending a treated K linen will partly reverse my treatment results. Not fully though, but maybe about 20-30% of it. My next step is to repeat the ironing, but this time I will do this with steam iron.
Best regards,
Urmas
Bart
Well-Known Member
I still believe this will all come down on suppleness. It seems that a stiff linen has a hard time making good contact with the edge. I don't doubt that the fibers have the right properties. When mine arrives, I will try to treat the extra linen strap to make it as bendable as the leather component. Then I will compare the performance with the stiff untreated linen.
The reason, why I personally would like to see this problem solved, is that the Kanayama strops is "leather-wise", if not the nicest, than at least one of the nicest, on todays market. It is produced by a small artisan company with a century of tradition.
Users who use the linen for the purpose of drying their razor after the shave and for a cleaning it before stropping on the leather, all seem to be very happy with theirs. But those of us who've come to expect more from their linen, clearly have trouble to get that. Thanks to JimR, we have the makers attention about that problem, and I believe they will value our honest feedback concerning our expectations of their product and how it meets those (or not).
Kind regards,
Bart.
That's a very clear explanation of your experiences, Emmanuel. Thank you. :thumbup:emmanuel said:
The reason, why I personally would like to see this problem solved, is that the Kanayama strops is "leather-wise", if not the nicest, than at least one of the nicest, on todays market. It is produced by a small artisan company with a century of tradition.
Users who use the linen for the purpose of drying their razor after the shave and for a cleaning it before stropping on the leather, all seem to be very happy with theirs. But those of us who've come to expect more from their linen, clearly have trouble to get that. Thanks to JimR, we have the makers attention about that problem, and I believe they will value our honest feedback concerning our expectations of their product and how it meets those (or not).
Kind regards,
Bart.
G
Guest
stalker said:
I bought it from Neil Miller as Gary confirm.
rgds
Emmanuel
garyhaywood
Well-Known Member
i like the livi loom the leather is so soft and real good .stalker said:
garyhaywood
Well-Known Member
emmanuel said:
i thought so he has nice linen.
justin
Well-Known Member
This first bit is slightly off topic. We've all read about those tales of people who've shaved with the same razor every day for a whole year and used nothing but a leather and linen strop, or the barbers who've shaved a 1000 customers without the razor ever touching a stone. Ideally this is what I would like in a strop (and my stropping technique); to shave with the same razor everyday for a year using nothing but my strop. I don't think this has been thoroughly discussed. Of course the nature of this hobby (or the hobbyist) makes it difficult to test such things. Do you think this topic is thread worthy?
Anyways, my humble experience is as follows: I have noticed that from constant use of the linen over a year has dramatically softened the surface. I don't get that cringe-worthy scraping sound I used to and I actually find it pleasurable to use the linen now. All in all it feels much better, however the strop is still very stiff (non-pliable) and I don't think any amount of use will change this. This is where the strop "conditioning" comes into play. I've been meaning to buy a test strop but just haven't gotten around to it.
I haven't done any hhts and instead I like to look at how long my edges last. Originally my edges would last only a month or less. The most recent honing I did the edge lasted three months, to give you an idea. I could have kept going with the edge, but I noticed the slightest deterioration. While the linen is a lot more broken in now compared to brand-new, I think improvement in stropping technique plays a part. Though I don't have experiences with other linen, I am still iffy about he Kanayama linen, and am not getting the edge-maintaining results I was expecting. I still consider myself a newb, and this is my humble experience.
How do I manage to write so much and say so little?
:
As always, thanks for the progressive discussions everybody.
Regards,
Justin
Anyways, my humble experience is as follows: I have noticed that from constant use of the linen over a year has dramatically softened the surface. I don't get that cringe-worthy scraping sound I used to and I actually find it pleasurable to use the linen now. All in all it feels much better, however the strop is still very stiff (non-pliable) and I don't think any amount of use will change this. This is where the strop "conditioning" comes into play. I've been meaning to buy a test strop but just haven't gotten around to it.
I haven't done any hhts and instead I like to look at how long my edges last. Originally my edges would last only a month or less. The most recent honing I did the edge lasted three months, to give you an idea. I could have kept going with the edge, but I noticed the slightest deterioration. While the linen is a lot more broken in now compared to brand-new, I think improvement in stropping technique plays a part. Though I don't have experiences with other linen, I am still iffy about he Kanayama linen, and am not getting the edge-maintaining results I was expecting. I still consider myself a newb, and this is my humble experience.
How do I manage to write so much and say so little?
: As always, thanks for the progressive discussions everybody.
Regards,
Justin
Bart
Well-Known Member
Justin,
your concerns make a lot of sense to me, and you're certainly not the only one around, who likes to optimize edge longevity of his razor.
From what I've experienced, I can tell you that it depends on several factors. The steel of the razor (formulation, temper and bevel angle) definitely makes a difference. Some of my razors can't withstand the impact with my whiskers, and small damage accumulates shave after shave. These are nice razors but more than 20 shaves I really can't get of them. On the other end of the spectrum I have a couple razors that I've never rehoned. I don't count shaves, but it are certainly way over 40. I think poor beard prep surely can have a negative influence on the edge of a razor.
Then we have the way one shaves. Greather shaving angles will definitaly put more stress on the edge than when the edge hits the hair more in a perpendicular way. A scything motion may also be easier on the edge, as it's an easier way to sever the hairs.
The care for the razor after shaving, is like another contrubuting factor. Microscopic corrosion can eat the keenness of an edge. I meticulously dry and oil all my razors after using them.
And finally we could discuss the way the edges are honed. When I started out, I used pastes for getting my razors keen enough during most of my first year as a straight razor user. I've recently revisited some pastes, and found out that the poor longevity of my edges in that first year, indeed were influenced by my use of pastes. It seems that the effect of finishing pastes only lasts a couple of shaves. I think it is related to the edge-trailing direction of pasted stropping.
The Kanayama linen is genuine linen. I expect it to be as effective as any linen, provided that you can make good contact between the edge and the surface of the strop. I know from Jim that the Kanayama strops originally had a more supple linen, but when the supplier ceased production many years ago, they started using this stiffer linen, that offered the same feel as the supple one, albeit less pliable.
My parcel hasn't arrived (it's on the way), so I can't offer much direct advice yet.
Kind regards,
Bart.
your concerns make a lot of sense to me, and you're certainly not the only one around, who likes to optimize edge longevity of his razor.
From what I've experienced, I can tell you that it depends on several factors. The steel of the razor (formulation, temper and bevel angle) definitely makes a difference. Some of my razors can't withstand the impact with my whiskers, and small damage accumulates shave after shave. These are nice razors but more than 20 shaves I really can't get of them. On the other end of the spectrum I have a couple razors that I've never rehoned. I don't count shaves, but it are certainly way over 40. I think poor beard prep surely can have a negative influence on the edge of a razor.
Then we have the way one shaves. Greather shaving angles will definitaly put more stress on the edge than when the edge hits the hair more in a perpendicular way. A scything motion may also be easier on the edge, as it's an easier way to sever the hairs.
The care for the razor after shaving, is like another contrubuting factor. Microscopic corrosion can eat the keenness of an edge. I meticulously dry and oil all my razors after using them.
And finally we could discuss the way the edges are honed. When I started out, I used pastes for getting my razors keen enough during most of my first year as a straight razor user. I've recently revisited some pastes, and found out that the poor longevity of my edges in that first year, indeed were influenced by my use of pastes. It seems that the effect of finishing pastes only lasts a couple of shaves. I think it is related to the edge-trailing direction of pasted stropping.
The Kanayama linen is genuine linen. I expect it to be as effective as any linen, provided that you can make good contact between the edge and the surface of the strop. I know from Jim that the Kanayama strops originally had a more supple linen, but when the supplier ceased production many years ago, they started using this stiffer linen, that offered the same feel as the supple one, albeit less pliable.
My parcel hasn't arrived (it's on the way), so I can't offer much direct advice yet.
Kind regards,
Bart.
