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Post by mjclark on Jun 2, 2014 0:32:33 GMT -6
Nice one David! You can certainly make replacement strops very easily from suitable material, and for the hone just overlay a bit of stiff card with some 1u lapping film, though if the strop is pasted you might never need to use that hone anyway. I'll make the same offer to you as to everybody else on this forum - I'd be very happy to get your Rolls blade shave ready since I already have the full kit for my straights, but of course it's also a lot of fun to experiment and do it for your self too! Since all the parts are interchangeable between models, you are bound to get a fully functional set eventually just by collecting bits off the bay
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ShadowsDad
Gem Star
None boring shaver!!
"It's not the bow, it's the Indian"
Posts: 4,534
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Post by ShadowsDad on Jun 2, 2014 22:21:36 GMT -6
That's exactly what I did Marcus. I bought some of the least expensive Rolls kits I could find, passing on the really nice ones. I also set very low limits on what I'd spend. I lost far more bids than I won. I figured eventually I'd get a nice working set cobbled together. I got that, plus spare parts to play with and those blades. I always made sure the blades were in good shape before I'd bid. Hones were another story, but I got a few good hones as well. I might have $100 invested, but I have a decent set and all those parts. It took me awhile; it wasn't done instantly. It's amazing how many RRs no one bids on and the minimum bid takes it.
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Post by mjclark on Jun 6, 2014 0:48:37 GMT -6
The Rolls Renaissance seems to really be gaining some momentum now! Brian (ShadowsDad) has sent me five blades to hone for his retrofitted Rolls project and he is sorting out various strops at his end which can be pasted with different compounds. I am finishing each blade differently to see how this affects the shave and shave tested the first one last night. It was finished with 0.5u diamond spray on felt then stropped on ferric oxide in the case. The diamond is very fast and, as expected, the blade was quite harsh initially but half way through the first pass it settled in and gave a beautiful smooth shave. The result was a comfortable BBS and a confirmation of how good the Rolls shave can be! Stropping with ferric oxide in the case should progressively smooth the blade whilst maintaining its considerable sharpness. A guy over on another forum is reporting great results using 1u lapping film on the hone and feox on the strop. His blades have been honed with 3 layers of electrical tape on the spine so that they make the same angle on the hones as they do in the case. However our blades have been honed flat on the stones so that they make a different angle in the case. Honing on film in the case should then result in a secondary bevel giving potentially sharper tri-faceted blades. It's also possible that the feox on the flat case strop will make case honing superfluous. Let's find out
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Post by mjclark on Jun 6, 2014 18:01:09 GMT -6
Ok, it's official - honing without tape outside the case then honing on 1u film in the case before pasted case stropping creates a secondary bevel and gives an awesome shave! I just shaved with a blade which had been honed outside the case without any tape, just flat on the stones. It was finished on 0.3u lapping film, but then honed in the case on 1u lapping film and stropped inside the case with ferric oxide. What a result! All that film made for a harsh edge but it will settle in with more shaves and more stropping. And it's incredibly sharp, perhaps too sharp - it has delivered a two pass BBS It seems the case honing has created a secondary bevel since in the case it hones at a different angle to flat on the stones. So now the new Rolls is really starting to take shape!
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Post by mjclark on Jun 7, 2014 17:29:58 GMT -6
Tried out a blade tonight that had been finished on CrOx before the case stropping. It didn't have the unnecessary shsrpness of the film or diamond finish but was immediately a smooth and close shaver. This may very well be the finish of choice for Rolls blades.
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Post by mjclark on Jun 8, 2014 6:37:39 GMT -6
Tried out Paul's original Rolls strop paste today on a clean home-made strop. It's got the unmistakeable colour of ferric oxide but who knows what grade? I'm guessing that this is a two-in-one paste with both abrasive sharpening and leather conditioning properties. It smells as if the ferric oxide is mixed with volatile minerals oils of some kind. In the bottom picture there's some feox and baby oil mix in the green lid for comparison. Now let's let it dry and see what it can do!
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Post by PJGH on Jun 8, 2014 7:49:19 GMT -6
Fingers crossed ...
Being potentially 60 or more years old, I did wonder if it would be any good. Does the stuff go off? I guess we'll see when your strop turns black and the blade disintegrates!
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Post by mjclark on Jun 8, 2014 8:34:08 GMT -6
Fingers crossed ... Being potentially 60 or more years old, I did wonder if it would be any good. Does the stuff go off? I guess we'll see when your strop turns black and the blade disintegrates! Those mineral oils are quite stable I think, but I did get a head rush when I smelled it
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ShadowsDad
Gem Star
None boring shaver!!
"It's not the bow, it's the Indian"
Posts: 4,534
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Post by ShadowsDad on Jun 8, 2014 17:44:29 GMT -6
I'm having problems with my system/internet but let me try this... It either works or it won't.
(written yesterday, posted today due to the problems. Includes info from other RR threads.)
Bringing a Rolls Strop back from the dead...
Marcus and I are working together to nail down the use of the Rolls Razor. The goal being to make it so that anyone can maintain the razor with the kit supplied by Rolls. OK, not exactly, but close. We have hopes of maintaining the Rolls without hones and such being required.
Since Marcus has my blades, soon I’ll need to have what is required to maintain the blades. Initially that means working strops.
When I got a wandering and lustful eye for a Rolls Razor I also sorta figured I’d need spare parts. The most difficult item to find is an intact hone. But that really isn’t required anyway in the system Marcus has in mind. BTW, Marcus is the brains here; I’m the guy who knows nothing about honing and maintaining a straight razor, so if I can do this anyone can. That's my role. The role of the sponge. (a sponge takes everything in and puts nothing out)
OK, so over a year ago I wound up with 5 good blades and 5 strops in varying degrees of serviceability. I figured some would need to have new leather installed. I checked with Neil Miller and he suggested that sending the panels would be far too expensive with duty fees and postage. He suggested I send tracings. I figured that option wouldn’t give me the accuracy I wanted since the Rolls strop is held in by the crimped sides and the clips at one end. That left finding a local gent to make the new strop panels. Right now I haven’t done that and my strop panels, I’m fairly certain, are quite serviceable. Here’s how I did it.
I read on the forum how another gent refurbished his strop with 600 grit paper, and Marcus reminded me of that. I wish I could remember the gents name. I simply can’t, but he deserves the credit for this.
It requires 600 grit wet or dry paper. I couldn’t find mine, but I do have a roll of 600 grit “windowscreen” abrasive. This is an open mesh abrasive. So I tore off a piece and laid it on my work bench. To make sure each piece of strop leather stayed with it’s respective panel I worked on one at a time. The strops pull out of the panels with no coercing at all. They have a backer that builds the leather up to a correct height. Two of my strops survived with the backer intact; 3 didn’t. Those 3 were incredibly brittle and fell apart. I required nothing more than a finger nail to fully remove the brittle adhesive from the leather. One panel required a brass scraper to remove a bit of adhesive residue.
Once the leather was out, with almost no pressure, I abraded the working side of the strops on the abrasive screen. Very gently and checking incredibly frequently. The leather is no match for AlOx, so this goes incredibly fast. Don’t overdue it! In checking the strops I was looking to make sure imperfections in the strop were being removed. Also that the entire surface of the strop was abraded. If there were areas that weren’t I’d put a finger over that area to give extremely slight pressure above that area. I don’t think it took more than 30-40 minutes to do 5 strops.
The grit screen I used worked out quite nicely. The material that was abraded off of the strops, mostly old dressing I suspect, fell through without loading the abrasive. If you can find some I suggest using it, but frankly I didn’t use paper, so that might work also.
I had one strop with cuts in it. Going in lengthwise strokes as I did with the other strops made the cuts worse by pulling the flap of leather. So I changed the stroke to go across the strop. Again very gently. It didn’t take long to abrade the cuts into nothingness.
In the end I saved all of my strops by using this simple procedure, but I wasn’t done.
Remember the backers that fell apart when I removed the leather from the panels? I needed something to take it’s place. I would have loved to use plastic, but I had none. So I wound up using a few thicknesses of computer photo paper. Cardboard or card stock could also be used.
If memory serves the backer is 5" long, the same length as the strop leather, and 1 3/16" in width (or was it 1 3/8" ??). Anyway, measure the width before removing the brittle baking on your strop. You want to mimic what you see. Four thicknesses made up what I’d seen, approximately 1/16" thick for the backer. The original backers were glued to the strop leather. I didn’t glue mine, but of course that option remains open if it becomes necessary. I used mylar adhesive tape to keep them in register with each other, then keeping the backer packet aligned side to side under the leather slid the assembly under the clips on the one end of the panel. Lowering the strop onto the panel almost gets the job done. But the sides are crimped to hold the leather and the job is complete once you force the leather into and below the crimp. All that’s required for a tool is a fingernail, but a window screen wheel would also do a good job here. When that’s done your strops have been refurbished.
Is there a strop that is too far gone for fixing? I suppose so, but I really thought I’d need to get new leather in 3 of my strops and I wound up requiring no new leather.
To get the strops ready for use, take a few drops of mineral oil, moisturizer, or ASB and rub it onto the leather. Allow it to soak in overnight. Marcus suggested to me that any strops that won’t se immediate use get another light coating. Heck, I could watch the leather soak up the ASB, so I gave all of the strops another treatment.
One of my strops will get a coating of FeOx and that will be the strop for everyday maintenance. One minute of stropping before and after a shave. (No slapping of the blade on the strop! Hone too! Never! )
That gives me 4 more strops to experiment with. I have .25u and .5u diamond sprays in case a blade requires a bit more edge maintenance than the FeOx gives it. I don’t have any CrOx yet and I might never get any. But I have a strop for that material if it’s required somewhere down the road. But for now those spare strops are bare and waiting.
What will you do with the hone panel? Basically nothing as it is. Marcus suggests 1u film laid over it and held down with a film of petroleum jelly should a blade ever require severe honing. But again, the goal is to never require that.
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Post by mjclark on Jun 11, 2014 14:34:27 GMT -6
I've decided after tonight's shave that the best finisher for me on the Rolls blades outside the case is 0.3u lapping film over paper. Follow that with case stropping on feox and you have the recipe for an incredibly sharp blade which will settle in nicely with subsequent stropping and shaves.
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ShadowsDad
Gem Star
None boring shaver!!
"It's not the bow, it's the Indian"
Posts: 4,534
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Post by ShadowsDad on Jun 16, 2014 16:27:21 GMT -6
I'm dancing a mental jig right now!
Marcus has my blades in the mail and headed back to me. It's been over a year in the waiting, getting my Rolls up and running. Marcus wasn't involved in that; I simply had it on a back burner, simmering this entire time and waiting.
If I can maintain the edge this will be too cool! I'm hoping. We've doped out (hopefully) a cost effective way for these to be maintained by the folks who don't know how to maintain a shaving edge. OK, that'd be me. :-)
No doubt most of my shaves for the near future will be Rolls Razor shaves. I actually love experimenting so this is right up my alley. I expect in a week or so to receive the blades. Then it begins. :-)
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Post by mjclark on Jun 19, 2014 14:19:51 GMT -6
Tried stropping on a homemade strop impregnated with some original Rolls strop paste which clearly has ferric oxide in it and some kind of leather conditioner as a medium. I guess the feox is a coarser grade than the modern one we've been using, since the blade came out rather harsh. It settled in quickly though, and I'm shocked at how sharp these blades are becoming as the edges refine with more honing and pasted stropping. Virtual two pass BBS this time. Sent from my GT-I8190N using Tapatalk
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Post by mjclark on Jul 2, 2014 3:16:07 GMT -6
A real Rolls breakthrough here! Inspired by recent conversations and the Darwin dual-strop system, I pasted the blank side of my OEM chipboard Viscount strop with 0.25u diamond paste. I stropped the blade first on the diamond and then the feox to smooth it but, as predicted, the edge was harsh on the first pass but by the second pass had settled in for a beautiful effortless irritation free BBS. This is the magic of the Rolls at its best!
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Post by mjclark on Apr 13, 2015 16:44:49 GMT -6
Next breakthrough - soak the case hone in petroleum jelly. This seems to work just as well as using lapping film. I tried this with my lovely new Rolls Imperial No.2 1950 set <br /> This was the ideal set to experiment with since its previous owner (God rest his soul) had bought it when new and only used it a handful of times, possibly only once. The result was a very very nice shave indeed. It's a bit of a mystery as to why original Rolls blades don"t seem shave ready and the OEM hone isn't up to the job either. How could they sell so many units of an item that simply wasn't fit for purpose? But paste the case strop and soak the OEM hone in vaseline and the whole thing starts working as it should. Until now, we've got the best results by honing the blade externally and using lapping film in the case. This new method of soaking the case hone in vaseline seems to be working just as well and is a lot more straightforward. See what you think...
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spidey9
Lather Catcher
All SE all the time!
Posts: 641
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Post by spidey9 on Jul 6, 2015 18:18:28 GMT -6
Last Saturday morning I gave this a try with my Rolls Imperial No. 2 set. Using the blade that came with it (not the blade that Marcus expertly honed for me a few months ago), I did 50 laps on the hone in the case, which I had previously soaked in vaseline, and stropped it for 30 seconds, as per the manufacturer's directions. Sure enough, the result was a sharp blade and a very nice shave. I also have a Rolls Viscount set and I decided to do the same with it on the following day. I had also previously soaked this hone in vaseline, as well as coating the strop with FeOx. The result was a disaster - it was like trying to shave with a butter knife. I finished the shave with a Schick Hydro-Magic and investigated the cause. I took a close look at the blade - really close, using my recently acquired digital microscope. Hmm . . . this doesn't look too bad - certainly not bad enough to feel like a butter knife. I flipped the blade over for a look at the other side: I think I see the problem. Looks sort of like . . . a butter knife. Or maybe a chisel. I gave it a couple hundred laps in the case hone and took another look. I'm not putting up another image, because it looked exactly the same. So, last night I broke out the DMT Dia-sharp hone and the lapping films and had at it. I put two layers of electrical tape on the blade in an effort to duplicate the angle of the case hone, more or less. In addition, extending the tape past the sides of the blade created a couple of "handles" that made handling the blade much easier. 100 laps on the DMT stone, then 50 laps each on 12, 9, 3, and 1 micron lapping film (on a marble slab), finishing with 30 seconds in the case stropper, and I ended up with a definite improvement, to say the least. This is the previous "bad" side - the other side looks the same. This morning I enjoyed what may well have been my best shave ever with the Rolls. From this I draw the following conclusions: 1. The case hone, conditioned with vaseline, is perfectly capable of maintaining a good shaving edge if used on a regular basis. 2. The case hone is pretty much useless for restoring a blade that has been neglected/damaged/abused. I might add that the Rolls is a quality piece of gear and I really enjoy working with it, not to mention shaving with it. I find the Rolls blades to be quite easy to hone in this manner, unlike the Wilkinson Empire blades - but that's another thread. --Bob
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