Thread: Looking to understand stropping

Long story short:
*I only have a 12K stone and a strop-on-a-board.
*There are no hone-masters in Honduras (that I know... the owned of the company I work for does shave with SR but I don't feel confident enough to ask him to hone my blade... plus chances are he travels to the US to get his blades honed)
*An awesome member sent me a 1k/6k combi King stone which is on its way to Honduras so this will help a ton!

The thing is, I've been playing with my blade and strop and have managed to get decent WTG passes, but there are some things I am curious about:

1. Pressure. I do apply pressure to the blade when stropping. Contrary to what's normally advised (light strokes, the weight of the blade should suffice) I found that if I do not apply pressure (I slightly press the blade against the strop with my thumb) the edge does not lay flat against the leather.
As a matter of fact, I noticed the place where the bevel ends was shiny but the bevel itself had no changes. This because it was not touching the leather, for mere fractions of a millimeter but it was not touching the leather. Applying pressure has proven to change the behaviour of the blade, while it still needs work, behaves much better than when I only used the weight of the blade.

Is pressure completely ill-advised? Because it seems to me it's actually situational.

2. Speed. What's the point of stroking with speed. I mean, from a physics point of view
I've seen people saying that you must move your blade fast across the strop, an average of a stroke per second. Why is that? What happens if you move your blade slow (from a physics point of view)?
Moving slowly does not help fix possible missaligns in the blade due to the low amount of force?... or it's to use the friction to heat the blade and make it more malleable and, as consequence, more able to be aligned

3. Palm heating What's the benefit? A wild guess would be that the heat from the leather is transferred to the blade, making the edge more malleable and helping align a part of the blade that could be missaligned... or the reason is something else?

I ask because I don't think all these common practices are the result of "tradition", there should be a physical reason behind all this and why it works and it's recommended... and hence, posted in the wiki. Understanding the reason why something works is more often than not the key to do it right.

Pressure -- You definitely need to apply pressure while stropping the blade to have a positive effect. Just do not apply a huge amount. Just a little more than is needed to keep the blade in contact with the strop and you will be fine.

Speed -- Don't worry about speed, that will come with time. Be sure to do even x-strokes (or, a race track pattern works also) to get the entire area of the edge. If you try to go quickly at first, you will only succeed in damaging your strop and/or the edge of your blade.

Palm heating -- This is mainly to keep the strop in good condition as rubbing the strop with the palm of your hand transfers skin oils to the leather (plus, this keeps the strop clean as well). Some also believe heating up the strop raises oils to the surface of the strop which keeps it in more effective condition for stropping.

I may have missed a few points, but those are the highlights as I see them. Hope this helps. Tradition is typically based on what works, and these are some of the reasons for why this all works. Hope that answers some of your curiosity.

Yes x strokes is the way forward.

Read everything in here http://straightrazorpalace.com/srpwi...azor_stropping

Great video from the library showing paddle stropping from AFDavis11
https://youtu.be/VYy3B3v8STo
https://youtu.be/VYy3B3v8STo

Nice nice. Simple answers to my questions hehe nothing to do with what I thought xD
The X stroke is the hardest part for me since the strop is wide enough to do a straight pattern stroke and I am afraid that die to the pressure (even if light) I could damage the bevel when it's touching the edge of the leather (The strop is wide enough to fit the blade and even part of the shoulder. Needless to say, the shoulder is always off the strop )

Keep the blade flat, and your razor's edge will be fine. Maybe try the racetrack pattern if the X-stroke isn't all that comfortable. I have a 3" wide strop and still avoid going straight up and down the strop. Good luck with your stropping exploits!

You have a 12K hone to sharpen the edge and a strop.

The strop will not sharpen an edge but will improve the edge.
A 12K hone like the Naniwa 12000 grit will give you a very nice edge.

Use a straight edge to inspect your hone for high and low spots.
Hone more on the high spots so the hone stays flat. If you have
something to flatten the hone consider it.

Hone smoothly with light strokes. It helps to use a marker like a "Sharpie" to
paint the edge and see if the hone is touching the razor all the way to the cutting
edge. That area is less than a millimeter on many razors. The important bit
is only the cutting edge.

Strop smoothly with the same or less weight than you used on the hone.
On a 12K hone you can use stropping strokes.

After honing there may or may not be a near invisible wire edge (burr) that
a strop will remove. A burr will often start a face cut so it needs to be wiped off.

After shaving the micro deformations of the cutting edge can be pulled out
straight and aligned. Minor oxidation will also be wiped off and the surface
made cleaner and smoother.

A hanging strop should only flex a bit. Lighten the weight of the razor or
pull tighter. The small flex concentrates the strop contact on the edge so
a light touch is best. A heavy touch will bend and roll the edge. The idea is
that the edge is dragged or pulled across the leather.

Leather on wood paddle strops do not flex but use the same pressure (almost none)
and the same smooth calm strokes.

When stropping think about smoothing a wrinkle from the edge of crumpled aluminum
foil or wet paper. If you push it crumples worse, if your drag your finger pull (tension) it will smooth.
You can drag wet paper over the surface of water and it will smooth out.

Speed is not needed for stropping. Smooth the right answer.
Set the blade down spine first lay the razor flat and move smoothly. Stop
lift the edge up and over and pull in the opposite direction. The spine
can stay in contact with the razor the whole time.

A professional barber might strop quickly but for him time is money
and he has had a lot of practice. After a year of nice smooth strokes
you will find they are quick enough. The time it takes for lather to
soften whiskers is about the time it takes to correctly strop a razor smoothly.
Refresh the lather and then apply razor to you face.

I read this awhile back and it made sense to me, " bury the spine". Bury the spine in your strop but that does not mean heavy handed, to me it translates to pressure applied in the direction of the stropping stroke. As example, if the spine is travelling away from you the pressure would not be straight down on the strop but into the strop. I hope this makes sense if not I will gladly do my best to get across what I mean.

Thank you Nifty.
I will add your knowledge to my repository of important facts and will keep them at hand once the King stone sent by Aerdvaark finally arrives. I'm pretty sure part of why the shave is still not 100% comfortable is because the bevel is still not perfectly made, but I've learned a lot in the last month.
It's been a long and frustrating road (8 years with an unusable SR) but with the current state of the blade and the new gear, I feel confident that I can finally make the razor a 100% shave ready razor.

When stropping think about smoothing a wrinkle from the edge of crumpled aluminum
foil or wet paper

Awesome advise

As example, if the spine is travelling away from you the pressure would not be straight down on the strop but into the strop. I hope this makes sense if not I will gladly do my best to get across what I mean.

I think it does. I imagine it's basically to apply enough pressure in order to make sure the edge lays flat against the leather without risking a blade folding.

Yes Sir I'm not good at getting out what I have in my head most of the time.

Your fine, I thought your information was rather precise and timely.