Lord Fatboy
Forgo Mud !
Anyone use a felt pad? I'd found it good for post-shave drying with a soft linen strop afterwards, and it does seem after honing to 'tighten' up and edge. My latigo strop is a little touch oily and the felt removes that too, though some think a little oil from a strop a good thing. I'd seen them alongside chef knives, so I bought a 99p sign writers pad, which is the same thing, and have been experimenting for a few months now. I don't mean felt strops, but solid felt blocks used by chefs and knife manufacturers.
EDIT -
Pulling the blade through the felt is useful for drying and removing bits of CroX etc. I think it has a further use - after I come off a finisher, pull the blade through the felt and then go to the strop, it often feels - on the leather strop - like I have already done say 10 laps on linen. At other times, stropping with the leather component and I feel the edge isn't quite "there" pulling the razor through the felt block, far from hurting the edge, often does the trick - makes the edge look slightly 'tighter' & brighter under x60 magnification.
I've tried taking a totally finished & stropped blade, shaving with it and then not stropping it for the next shave. The shave, on the first pass, was not very good as you can imagine. Pulling it through the felt block then yielded a far better second pass.
I haven't explained this very well from the start - doing some digging last night I did find some brief mention of them on B & B, but I also saw that 'Dr Matt' has 2 short videos, each from 2015 about felt blocks and indeed sells them - via a CKTG page. He explains it better than I have thus far, whatever you think about his methods.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CL4okt-QxA
Here is the item I use itself, or similar:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FELT-BLO...660414?hash=item5b40b57f7e:g:Y0gAAOSwGUBaDTB2
It's similar to pulling it through wood or cork or rubber, but they almost certainly hurt the edge, felt does not in my experience. Maybe give it a try and decide whether it's icing or gravy or neither.
(other video - 2.10 onwards, a better explanation)
View: https://youtu.be/q1EQgEDUPEk?t=2m13s
EDIT -
Pulling the blade through the felt is useful for drying and removing bits of CroX etc. I think it has a further use - after I come off a finisher, pull the blade through the felt and then go to the strop, it often feels - on the leather strop - like I have already done say 10 laps on linen. At other times, stropping with the leather component and I feel the edge isn't quite "there" pulling the razor through the felt block, far from hurting the edge, often does the trick - makes the edge look slightly 'tighter' & brighter under x60 magnification.
I've tried taking a totally finished & stropped blade, shaving with it and then not stropping it for the next shave. The shave, on the first pass, was not very good as you can imagine. Pulling it through the felt block then yielded a far better second pass.
I haven't explained this very well from the start - doing some digging last night I did find some brief mention of them on B & B, but I also saw that 'Dr Matt' has 2 short videos, each from 2015 about felt blocks and indeed sells them - via a CKTG page. He explains it better than I have thus far, whatever you think about his methods.
Here is the item I use itself, or similar:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FELT-BLO...660414?hash=item5b40b57f7e:g:Y0gAAOSwGUBaDTB2
It's similar to pulling it through wood or cork or rubber, but they almost certainly hurt the edge, felt does not in my experience. Maybe give it a try and decide whether it's icing or gravy or neither.
(other video - 2.10 onwards, a better explanation)
Last edited:
). I'm sure I've seen them discussed on B & B, but maybe I misunderstood a conversation about regular felt 'long' strops.
for the first year that's all we seemed to do was sharpen our chisels plane irons and set out and sharpen our saws, and the last thing we would do to our chisels after sharpening them would be run the chisel edge across a piece of soft wood just like the felt block to rid the honed chisel of the foil bur or feather edge call it what you will.