Thread: Stropping - lifting the razor off the strop at the end of a pass

I think this type of stropping goes back to watching barbers flail away at the leather. Like Jimbo says, they were definitely on top of their game.

I have never figured out why my barber (as a kid) always flicked some water on his strop before applying the razor. The strop was leather.

I agree with Jimbo . Keeping the spine on the strop felt a little awkward at first , for me too . But it was easy to learn , and well worth the effort .

So glad I read this. Being a newbie, today will be my 5th day, I thought that the razor should be lifted of the strop at the end of the stroke but that the most important thing was having the edge lifted off the strop first.

Just tried stropping with the spine never leaving the strop and it felt so much better. It was also a much faster transition although being new I'm still very slow in comparison to videos I've seen. Still not totally comfortable with stropping but hopefully getting better.

Thanks

Doing it this way is like stopping and starting every pass and will be more time consuming. It can be done but odds are you will damage the edge and nick up your strop especially as you are still learning. If you are flipping the razor in your fingers then it should be a easy change to keep the blade on the strop. Good luck

After ruining a leather strop. I started to go very slow. I would stop totally get into position and finished the turn. After doing that for a while I have picked up some speed. Good luck.