Thread: Is over stropping possible?

Funny but 70 year old (at the time) barber, doing it 50 years, told me very seriously, with somber face, "You can overstrop a razor." That was in 1984 or so. I played around with straights for a time back then but gave up shaving with them and only collected stub tails. Twenty five years later I began seriously pursuing this sport and found that Frank was apparently in error.

I've never been a marathon stropper. For a time I routinely did 50/50 on linen and leather. Now I'm down to 30/30 and 20 leather only following the shave. That said, I've seen guys enthusiastic about stropping do a progression from the cloth component to latigo, to horsehide ....... or whatever ..... of hundreds of round trips. They seem to feel this enhances their shaves, and they probably have forearms like Popeye.

I know of one celebrated honemeister who has begun to have repetitive stress problems in hands, elbows, and wrists from overuse, and he is not a marathon stropper as the aforementioned guys. Anyway ....... if you really want to know if you can overstrop a razor it is really simple AFAIC. Take a couple of different families of razors, Solingen, Sheffield, USA. Full hollow, quarter hollow and wedge.

Get a microscope and go to town on your strops. Examine the edges every 50 - 100 round trips. Are they deteriorating visibly ? Micro chipping, or wearing in some visible manner ? I would think for the average amount that we strop razors, assuming good technique, there is no perceptible wear, but I'm not sure.