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I performed my experiment this afternoon.
The razor was a full hollow Ralf Aust 5/8. It was last professionally honed 13 months ago and was touched up on a barber hone this summer. The Aust had been tugging the last couple of time I shaved with it and irritation was present post shave.
The initial stropping today was 20 laps poly webbing, 60 laps leather. Then a hanging hair test, arm hair test, then shave test were performed. For comparison I did the hanging hair and arm hair test with a recently pro honed razor(three shaves) at the same time. The shave test was one stroke with my dominant hand WTG on cheek, one WTG on jaw , one WTG on lower neck. The edge struggled to cut hair for the hanging hair test, did pop arm hair, and cut beard hair adequately. It was surpassed by the freshly honed edge in the hanging hair and arm hair tests.
The second stropping was 20 laps webbing, 150 laps leather. There was significant improvement in the hanging hair test and arm hair test. The shave test seemed like an improvement also. There definitely was not tugging present like there was when I last shaved with this razor a couple of weeks ago.
I will try this experiment again with another razor next week. For now, I think the extra laps have improved this Brazil's edge where my normal 20/60 laps had not. Obviously, this Aust still is nowhere near as sharp and smooth as it has been fresh from being professionally honed.
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I always spend more time on a linen strop coming off off the hones and find it smooths an edge for my sensitive face. When I find a razor starting to feel not as comfortable I'll aways up the laps on both linen and leather, this also, for me, seems to bring it to where I want it to be without going to the hones.
I also found this to be quite intriguing; I have a beautiful snail forge razor made from O2 steel that when I first used shaved both close and comfortable but felt cold and unfriendly. I decided to really up the stropping and it has turned into one of my favourites, kind of like when you use a big ol' Sheffield for the first time and its like and old friend.
