Strop in the Name of Love

[wschruba]

This wasn't bought initially for instrument work, however, I bought two antique razor stropping wheels, a Twinplex and a Kriss Kross, as I have been having trouble finding 1) good quality double-edged razor blades for my preferred shaver, and 2) I dislike the idea of purchasing excessively expensive razors to get one (maybe two) good shaves.

 

 

After playing with both of them for a while, I remembered that I had had issues with my Scharffix eating razors -- not really an issue, just the nature of the beast.  Well, I decided to do an experiment, since I had tried hand-stropping razors to extend their [sometimes pitiful] life.  I loaded up one of the widely-reviled blades that came with the machine, first in the Kriss Kross: the machine does not really fit full-width double-edged blades, and maybe not surprising, since the more "common" styles were either Gillette style or rounded ends (and a shorter blade).  That said, it fits Gillette-type (all modern double-edged shaving blades) just fine.  The edge it strops is just fine, though you need to manually flip the blade to do the second edge.  It has a neat pressure lever on it [not visible] that allows you to set an aggressive strop, which progressively "clicks down" to the lowest spring tension.

 

I actually found that while it was somewhat irritating to use for double-edged blades (and didn't work at all for the industrial blades that came with the Scharffix), it actually works fantastically to strop #11 hobby knife blades.  As these are used quite frequently in my finer work, a hidden bonus.  Fans of single-edged razors (the ones with the aluminum/steel handle folded over the blade) will be happy to know that this machine happily strops those, as well.

 

 

This, the Twinplex strop, however, is the bee's knees.  You place a blade (including industrial-style double-edged blades) on the posts, and slide it in.  Fixing the window back in place, each crank of the mechanism pulls the strop firmly into the two blade edges, then flips blade mechanism, ready to strop the other side.

 

The end result?  The industrial blades were still a bit tough, but they now cut well enough to do coarse skiving.  The sturdier blade tracks better through the material, but it was occasionally difficult to get started.  After it started catching, stropping for 10-20 cranks restored the function.  Now, the shaving blades...already polished, already sharp, put through the stropping machine cut beautifully--practically no resistance through goat.  Same as the industrial blades, when they began to catch, re-stropping them restored their function.  Both styles of blade cut well through nubuck, as well.  As I previously had to change the blade on practically every 10" of nubuck (which was a heavy chrome tan) for piano parts, this is a huge improvement.  It also opens up the possibility of trying to make a bellows assembly from deer hide, since the nubuck I have is wonderfully tight, and can get quite thin.  Previously, it was not really possible to skive thin strips of it, because it was too stretchy to get the Scharffix to reliably get through two sides of one end run, let alone the bindings.  By the third attempt, I hit the stride with the skiver, and was able to get through a 20" piece analogous to a bellows binding.

 

The Kriss Kross is not likely to be found outside of the USA, though my understanding is that mechanisms similar to the Twinplex were available in Europe, too.  Note: neither machine is a miracle worker...they cannot restore a chipped/otherwise snaggled edge.

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Very interesting.. although, I think it is best in a more specialist  forum called shaver novelties.com😊