X stroke or is diagonal just fine.

Been stropping on a 3" strop and am very lazy on technique because the razor is always in contact with the strop. But I have been feeling guilty about my laziness and want to change my ways.
I find that going diagonal down and flip and coming back seems very natural. The x stroke seems like a lot of extra motion. I'm presuming that the motion is diagonal down, flip cross and coming back.
Both allow the full blade to keep in contact even with a narrower strop. I'm just not seeing the advantage of Xing. The only thing I can see is the x stroke will use the whole strop while just diagonal leaves the opposite corners out of the equation.

Can some one educate me?

As long as the entire blade is getting attention I don't see a thing wrong diagonal.

Brian thanks for the input. The only thing that bugs me it that if just going diagonal is fine then why has the X stroke been the norm as it is a more complicated move?

It seems that most people just strop 90 degrees from the spine. Even with a narrow strop, you can strop portions of the razor 'straight' if you want to do it the easiest way.

Dragging the edge across the strop at an angle does seem to produce a keener edge though so there may be some merit to the X- stroke. It is more complicated and I cannot strop as fast using an X-stroke as I can straight but as I said, it seems to work better.

There is another choice though- you can hold the razor at an angle and strop 'straight'. That gives the effect of the X- stroke without haveing to move the razor in any direction other than straight. Put the razor on the strop with the heel in front of the tip and make the 'away' stroke. Then flip it and do the same. It would seem that you would have to re- angle the razor so it is heel first again coming back but really that is not necessary in my experience. The razor will strop fine point- first.

And just to make this even more complicated, you can make, say, 30 laps straight and then do, say, 10 laps at an angle or use the X- stroke for them.

Brian

imatabor said:

Been stropping on a 3" strop and am very lazy on technique because the razor is always in contact with the strop. But I have been feeling guilty about my laziness and want to change my ways.
I find that going diagonal down and flip and coming back seems very natural. The x stroke seems like a lot of extra motion. I'm presuming that the motion is diagonal down, flip cross and coming back.
Both allow the full blade to keep in contact even with a narrower strop. I'm just not seeing the advantage of Xing. The only thing I can see is the x stroke will use the whole strop while just diagonal leaves the opposite corners out of the equation.

Can some one educate me?

Click to expand...

imatabor said:

Brian thanks for the input. The only thing that bugs me it that if just going diagonal is fine then why has the X stroke been the norm as it is a more complicated move?

Click to expand...

Most vintage strops were less than three inches wide, x-strokes would strop the entire blade.

Some of my razors have prominant smiles, so I do an x stroke moving from toe to heal which ends up looking like a wiper motion with a smiling blade. I keep the same stroke with straight edges for reinforced muscle memory. I prefer strops about 2" wide or a little bigger.

I also do the modified "X", where it is heel-toe forward, and toe-heel on the return.

I've tried both over the years and never noticed a difference between the x-stroke and straight out-and-back strokes.

Unlike the x-stroke on a hone, the x motion is an inch or less on a 2-2 1/2 inch strop. This suede and cordovan stropping on this video is an xstroke.

http://youtu.be/9twAOYV3f5w

imatabor said:

Brian thanks for the input. The only thing that bugs me it that if just going diagonal is fine then why has the X stroke been the norm as it is a more complicated move?

Click to expand...

Stunt stropping!