Doing it wrong all this time?

[SparkyLB]

A few days ago for no particular reason I stropped my newly-honed SR very slowly and softly. I'm thrilled to say it yielded one of my best shaves to date. I've been stropping too hard all this time. I think I was also stropping too fast. I've watched countless videos on You Tube and at a couple of SR vendors that are members here. They go so fast it's a wonder that smoke isn't rising off that blade.

My mentor told me to keep learning. This one I picked up by accident, but my days of stropping like I'm making a video are over. It will be gentle and slow from here on out. Live and learn. I am so grateful for picking up this seemingly insignificant procedure. It's huge, and will help me moving forward.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Yes, Speed = pressure, generally. You can learn to strop with speed, like an old school barber who stropped a razor 20-30 times a day, but it takes lots of practice and concentration.

As with honing, slow laps aid in controlling downward pressure. Too much pressure can bend, roll and break an edge easily or just over flex an edge and weaken it so the next time you strop, it microchips/ breaks.

I strop with the strop looped around a doorknob with a 20-inch piece of para cord, this puts the strop at waist level for best pressure control. I hold the strop taught with just a bit of slack and start with clean linen, 10 laps with just a bit of pressure and finish with 10-15 slow laps with lite pressure. And finish on clean leather 15-20 laps all with lite slow pressure.

BTW Flax and Hemp strops are game changers, you don’t need to wash dusty Firehose for days, there are lots of good hemp and flax strops on the market today. Vintage Flax strops are all over too but will require as much washing as Firehose. The goal is to remove every bit of dust that is imbedded in the weave from years of contamination. A new Flax or Hemp replacement is $20.

I believe that Post shaving stropping is critical to edge retention and keen edges. I wipe my razor with a damp microfiber and a dry microfiber and still see “stuff” on the bevels and edge. Soap, water, skin and bits of blood. All of this contains moisture and immediately attacks the steel at its thinnest part, the edge. If you don’t get it off how much damage do you think it does overnight, in a humid bathroom?

I strop on linen post shave 10-15 laps for a clean dry bevel and edge and leave the razor to dry slightly open overnight.

Many of us go through great machinations on honing progression, high grit/high dollar finish stones, slurry’s, nagura, more slurry progressions, micro dilution, and endless technique, only to muff it all with random slap dash stropping. One step forward, two steps back.

Stropping is way, way under rated. You have mastered stropping when each lap is improving/perfecting your edge. Stropping. Perfect stropping is your last chance to perfect your edge, before it touches your face.

 

[Darth Scandalous]

The other thing about slow is that it lets you feel what your level of pressure is actually doing. Also I find it's easier to make sure I'm hitting the whole edge, strops aren't flat and razors don't have perfectly straight edges.

Good to see you back here.

 

[Frank Shaves]

Congrats, @SparkyLB!

It has taken me a long, long time to learn to strop. I try to write down these light bulb moments and even then I often forget and need to reexperience them.

Knowing what I now know, here is what I would tell a newbie stropper:

1. Start slow with just the weight of the razor and gradually increase and decrease the pressure until you find the sweet spot.
2. Do this again and again and again until your begin to learn where sweet spot is and what it feels like.
3. The sweet spot will vary by the razor, the day, the position of the moon and your frame of mind.
4. While you are doing all of this try to:
   1. Keep the spine in contact with the material
   2. Use a smooth continuous motion on the down and up runs, and turnarounds
   3. On the turnarounds, imagine yourself as a ninja stropper with the smoothest of all motions

 

[SparkyLB]

Thanks again for your support everyone. Frank, that’s a nice scenario you’ve written.

 

[rhgg2]

I am only just in the last few months getting good results from stropping. I would add:

Try different orientations. Anchored at waist height, shoulder height, head height, near the floor. Strop horizontal, sloping up, sloping down, vertically down. Side on, end on, somewhere in the middle. Only after I'd gone through five or six combos did I find one that clicked.

 

[House Boy]

Morning all, good thread that brings a question. I have not purchased a straight yet because I'm waiting to get home were I want to take another look at an old straight I got as a memory of a passed uncle who also by the way was a barber back in the day. So if I were to get a strop and start practicing with it, what could I use that would closely be like a straight, any kind of kitchen knife etc.? Something that won't ruin the strop. Maybe one of the sticks you get for mixing paint??

 

[Stapelfeld]

In my case I've had the completely opposite effect, I used to be a light stropper and the edge would never get anywhere, only when I started using a good amount of pressure and putting torque into the razor to make good contact with the strop did I manage to get good stropping edges. Especially after a coticule or naturals they seem to really like some heavy stropping. HHT5 is now a common occurrence, no sound just my partners thin hair falling off

 

[House Boy]

I value the experience you gents have but I’m wondering if putting that green bar stuff on hemp strip is really necessary and can I just use one side of the TM hemp strop and keep other side clean?