The downstroke

[duke762]

Passive mindfulness. The eradication of chaotic thought created when by contemplating completely irreconcilable truths simultaneously.

That's probably more words than I have posted this year. That post alone would have taken me 2 weeks to type out.

I quoted this nicely worded gem of advice and I'm going to steal it to post on my tool box at work. I'm also going to read this a couple times and make sure I didn't miss anything. I have trouble putting any knowledge I have into words. This makes my job at work harder than it should be. When I'm asked how do you....I always reply, come with me I'll show you.

Proper stropping has been a big bugaboo for me. Thankfully I've figured it out......finally.

Thanks for taking the time to post this!

 

[rhgg2]

Finally I think I worked out what was going on, and why I could not strop adequately. My strop was way too stiff! It was a strip of leather I bought and attached hardware to. I have rubbed it a lot to try to break in but was leery about bending it. The upshot is that it was still, after six months, like a piece of board. I just did some slow and steady bending over the last couple of days and reduced its radius of curvature by a lot. Suddenly, keeping the edge in contact, which required all my wrist strength and total concentration, just sort of happens without barely any effort.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Likely the leather is in need of hydration and rolling to loosen up the fibers.

Dampen the leather on both sides and edges with a damp sponge, to where you have uniform color. Wait 15-20 minutes, this is important, allow the water to be absorbed deep into the leather.

Take a tablespoon of olive oil and place in a dish, fold a paper towel into a 2-inch square, dip the towel in the oil and blot and rub on the leather, blot the edges, try to get the color as uniform as possible.

Now the hard part, wait a day or three until all the oil absorbs deep into the leather and is has uniform color.

Get a cheap rolling pin, Dollar or thrift store. Suspend the rolling pin from above with hooks and paracord, I use my open garage door.

Dampen the strop again, and add another teaspoon of oil, allow the oil to penetrate the leather about 20-30 minutes. Place the strop over the rolling pin and roll slowly begin to slightly bend the leather. If you feel the fibers cracking, stop, and do another cycle of dampening and oiling, try rolling again in 2-3 days. Don’t try to bend it completely in one session. Bending will allow the oil to penetrate deeper an make the next rolling session easier without breaking any fibers.

Eventually you will be able to roll the leather to where it is soft and flexible and makes a complete U on the rolling pin in both directions.

I have an old Russian tanned, Certyfied strop, about ¼ inch thick that was hard as a board when I got it. It is now as soft and floppy as a well washed sock, root beer brown and well hydrated.

The trick to hydrating leather is to go slow and add a little bit of oil at a time and roll it to loosen up the fibers. There is no telling how long your strop or piece of leather has sat on a shelf in a hot warehouse, most all strops can benefit from some rehydration and rolling.

You can also wash and roll flax line strops, they too can be made soft and floppy. It will transform your strops and stropping. There is a post on this site with photos of my rolling pin set up.

 

[rhgg2]

So this time I think I really did get to the. bottom of this. The reason my downstroke was not working was to do with the flip. At the end of the flip, before the return stroke, the blade needs to rest flat against the strop before beginning the stroke, so that torqueing it torques the edge into contact with the strop. I had been starting the downstroke with the blade still floating a bit above the strop, so that torqueing barely brought the edge to flat. Fixing that fixed my consistency problems.

 

[Honedright]

When I’m stropping, the back of the shank/tang rests on the side of my slightly curled in forefinger, and my thumb is on the opposite side of the shank directly on the flat of the shank (usually where the jimping is located). While stropping, my thumb is all that moves rolling the back of the shank back and forth on top of my forefinger, pinching the shank (between thumb and forefinger), and applying downward pressure with the thumb to keep the razor in contact with the strop. My other fingers are lightly curled around the razor handle to provide support and stability.

Also, I strop with a sweeping motion keeping my elbow near my side. Not straight up and down, and not strictly diagonally. Somewhat like a windshield wiper.

After so my years doing this, the flip happens automatically at the correct moment when changing directions. In fact I prefer to not think about what I’m doing as that could cause me to make a mistake.

 

[rhgg2]

I keep coming back to this because I keep figuring out new ways to make my downstroke less bad. I was getting close, but it was still clearly not contacting as well as the up stroke.

What I found out today is that it works wayyy better if I treat both the up and down stroke as "push" strokes, ie, I am pushing the razor over the strop, rather than treating the downstroke as a "pull" stroke, ie, I am pulling the razor back to where I start. In practice, just thinking like this makes me adjust my posture for the downstroke, more weight on right foot, right wrist rotated more and right shoulder more open. Then it is much easier to apply torque on the downstroke. Now the two directions sound the same!

 

[Frank Shaves]

^
I totally hear you about this and stropping in general. If I think too hard and bear down on the leather, my brain thinks: 1) up, 2) turnaround, 3) down, 4) turnaround, etc., resulting in a choppy experience. If, instead, I think continuous motion starting slow, my speed naturally increases, resulting in a smoother experience. I also try to think about keeping the spine on the leather.

If I were to summarize what I have learned:

1) Start slow, letting the speed develop organically.
2) Try to keep the spine on the leather.
3) Strive for a continuous motion.