Thread: Looking to understand stropping

Stropping on a paddle is different than stropping on a hanging strop. Hanging strops are more forgiving, especially for new stroppers.

1. Pressure, yes you need some pressure, but too much especially on a paddle strop will roll the edge.

Holding the razor by the corner of the tang and torque/twist the tang to put pressure on the edge. Ensure that you keep the spine and edge on the strop always. You want enough pressure to keep the razor flat on the strop, but not so much you roll the edge.

2. Speed, kills… an edge and your strop. Speed will come with experience, but it is not necessary. Go SLOW. You want quality smooth laps, not quantity. Heat has nothing to do with the results of stropping.


3. Palm heating, I assume you are talking about rubbing the strop, not palm stropping.

Personally, I believe rubbing is a myth and a destructive one. Folks say that they are adding oil from your skin to the strop. Perhaps, but if you hand is dirty you will be grinding airborne dust into the strop. If you wash your hand, you wash off any oil on your palm.

The goal is to clean the strop, the strop should be as clean/pristine as possible to prevent imbedding dirt into the strop.

So, imagine you have a show car with an immaculate paint job. Do you wipe your dirty hand on the dusty paint, to clean and polish the paint?

I know many will say they have done this for years without issue… but to me, it just does not make sense. Wipe your strop with a clean damp cloth. Add oil separately if needed.

Many of the razors I hone for people have deep scratches on the bevels and chipped edges, I believe from dirt imbedded in their strops.

You can make a good strop from a clean smooth leather belt, nylon seat belt or cotton or nylon belt or strip of canvas. Stropping can take a while to perfect to the point that you are improving the edge. Until then a quality leather strop will not make much difference.

Thank you so much Euclid.
The info here is soooo very helpful.

Yesterday I decided to practice a little bit with the info presented here and a little modifications of my own. I found that resting my thumb on the away strokes and my [ring-middle-pointing] fingers on the comeback strokes give me a LOT more control, so much is the difference that I've been feeling confident enough to strop with an X pattern. I keep the blade balanced as I move it.

Also, I am doing strokes kinda slow. Listening, Feeling, and avoiding the "Zinnnnnnnng" at the end of the stroke. When I tried to strop fast, I would hear it from time to time. Now, with more patience, I never hear it and the exercise feels more smooth and I like it.

The results? WTG was really nice. XTG felt still not perfect, so I will stop playing with the blade for now and wait for the stone. ATM, it feels like I'm trying to smooth a rough stone with a piece of cloth. The blade is not ready yet, that's it. But considering how bad my previous WTG passes were in the past, I think the blade has improved a lot.

Regarding the seat belt / nylon strop, I am curious about it. Specially since I don't have a canvas strop. My understanding is that canvas is for finishing touches and you use an even lighter pressure, am I correct? I'll go to a hardware store and see if they have smooth nylon straps. Would an every day cotton shirt (or a finely threaded cloth) tightly wrapped around a flat surface work the same?

Thank you all for your help

want to really read about stropping ???

Here is info from all kinds of people with plenty of Vids and opinion to steer you along

http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...st-2012-a.html

Originally Posted by gssixgun

want to really read about stropping ???

Here is info from all kinds of people with plenty of Vids and opinion to steer you along

http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...st-2012-a.html

An interesting experiment to get the feel of stropping uses a roll of newspaper.
Make a roll from a SINGLE sheet of newspaper.
Too much pressure stroping and the roll will collapse.
The roll is narrow so start at the heel end of the razor and stroke so the contact point with the roll
ends up at the toe at the end. Lift the edge but not the spine from the roll. Edge up and over then after
sliding the spine to place the heel in position bring the edge down. Stroke in the opposite direction.
This is an X stroke, a bit extreme but still an X stroke.
If you get the timing wrong you slice a bit of yesterday's paper and not a new strop.

Nice and slow (deliberate). The spine stays in contact.

The flip is done with the thumb and first finger more than the arm or wrist.
Watch the videos for this bit.

You can even practice with a butter knife at first.

One other tip I like to share, place the spine on your strop and perform your stroke carefully.
Now lay the blade on as you would normally and notice the sound difference? Not all razors will be that noticeable but I have found most of mine make a different sound letting you know you are in contact.

Originally Posted by niftyshaving

An interesting experiment to get the feel of stropping uses a roll of newspaper.
Make a roll from a SINGLE sheet of newspaper.
Too much pressure stroping and the roll will collapse.
The roll is narrow so start at the heel end of the razor and stroke so the contact point with the roll
ends up at the toe at the end. Lift the edge but not the spine from the roll. Edge up and over then after
sliding the spine to place the heel in position bring the edge down. Stroke in the opposite direction.
This is an X stroke, a bit extreme but still an X stroke.
If you get the timing wrong you slice a bit of yesterday's paper and not a new strop.

Nice and slow (deliberate). The spine stays in contact.

The flip is done with the thumb and first finger more than the arm or wrist.
Watch the videos for this bit.

You can even practice with a butter knife at first.

Originally Posted by ejmolitor37

One other tip I like to share, place the spine on your strop and perform your stroke carefully.
Now lay the blade on as you would normally and notice the sound difference? Not all razors will be that noticeable but I have found most of mine make a different sound letting you know you are in contact.

Will do both things.
One thing I forgot to mention is that the spine is warped (I think that is the right word) it has a curve (like a smile) on the spine that makes one side bevel to be deeper than the other, the edge tho looks straight. I won't try to correct it... I think I read somewhere that chances are to damage the blade beyond hope. Besides if the WTG have been good, I think it's safe to assume it's just a matter of being good at honing and stropping.

One thing I do have to do is lap the 12K stone again... we moved to another apartment and my wife thought the stone was just a stone so she packed it with other things and now it's scratched and dented... -__-
I have a 1.5K norton wet sandpaper and I can get a 2000k (from another brand) to help. Interesting enough, the 1.5K Norton feels smoother than the 2K from the other brand. (An if you're curious, I can buy .5, .6 and .8 grit sandpaper. The 1.5k and 2k are used for automotive works (scratch removing and the like))

Originally Posted by niftyshaving

An interesting experiment to get the feel of stropping uses a roll of newspaper.
Make a roll from a SINGLE sheet of newspaper.
Too much pressure stroping and the roll will collapse.
The roll is narrow so start at the heel end of the razor and stroke so the contact point with the roll
ends up at the toe at the end. Lift the edge but not the spine from the roll. Edge up and over then after
sliding the spine to place the heel in position bring the edge down. Stroke in the opposite direction.
This is an X stroke, a bit extreme but still an X stroke.
If you get the timing wrong you slice a bit of yesterday's paper and not a new strop.

Nice and slow (deliberate). The spine stays in contact.

The flip is done with the thumb and first finger more than the arm or wrist.
Watch the videos for this bit.

You can even practice with a butter knife at first.

I'd love to see a video, or at least some pics of this, just to make sure I'll be doing it right.

It is not a matter of doing it right it is just an activity to make a point.

Try stropping a kitchen knife on rolled up single sheet of newspaper.

The roll will be narrow so it mandates an x-stroke.

The roll is tender so it mandates a gentle touch or it will collapse.

If you want to strop a kitchen knife to improve the edge take almost the entire Sunday
paper and roll it up into a big heavy solid log that would hurt if someone whacked
you with it.

You can also take common cardboard and cut a 2-1/2 inch strip to strop on.
Slowly practice the motions and if you get it wrong you cut trash cardboard
not a $90 great leather strop.