Thread: Took my time and 200 perfect strops.....What a difference it made the blade

Originally Posted by RezDog

Well without this thread I would have never know.
My name is Shaun,
and I am an excessive stropper.
No progression but I strop at least 100 on leather before every shave after 50 on felt.

Like Shaun, do what works for you and makes you happy.

As is the usual case in this forum, the right answer is in your head, not someone else's noggin.

Okay, gents. You have me thinking.

I have a Latigo/poly webbing strop from SRD and prior to shaving do 20 laps on the webbing and 60-75 on the leather. After shaving and drying the razor I do 10 laps webbing, 15-20 leather. I have two razors that are starting to struggle with tree-topping and aren't providing a smooth and comfortable shave. Would increasing the laps on leather to 100-150 return the edges to their formal glory?

What if I lightened my pressure for the last 50 laps? Would that be similar to progressive stropping?

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

Okay, gents. You have me thinking.

I have a Latigo/poly webbing strop from SRD and prior to shaving do 20 laps on the webbing and 60-75 on the leather. After shaving and drying the razor I do 10 laps webbing, 15-20 leather. I have two razors that are starting to struggle with tree-topping and aren't providing a smooth and comfortable shave. Would increasing the laps on leather to 100-150 return the edges to their formal glory?

What if I lightened my pressure for the last 50 laps? Would that be similar to progressive stropping?

Perhaps this is why it is such a controversial subject. Only your personal experiences, with what you have, count!

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Perhaps this is why it is such a controversial subject. Only your personal experiences, with what you have, count!

Just what I suspected.

I think, for the sake of tonsorial science, I will test this out later in the week using one razor, followed by the other razor next week.

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.

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.