Thread: No Stropping Before A Shave?

I didn't read all of Dean's post.

I would like to add (I think) though, that for me, stropping a newly honed edge is a completely different process then stropping an edge that has been used before.

From the strops point of view a newly honed edge is the most fragile edge you could try to strop.

I would sit in the camp that a razor should not be stropped the first time and you should only attempt part of your face. The razor will be smoothed out a little as you shave. Atleast if your paying for the honing and you have to mail it out again once done.

First and foremost, Thank you Ryan for starting a thread which has provoked so many opinions, I have found a great deal of this to be entertaining and educational.

My dad always told me growing up that if someone makes somethig look easy, it is very likely that they are quite skilled at the task. It is silly (IMO) to assume being new to straights that I am capable of doing the things that I see done in the videos. On the other hand, I am not unaccustomed to using leather to strop a blade. For me it is like second nature. It is difficult to understand how some of the battle hardened "experts" will not divert from the opinion that noobs will always roll the razor's edge. But that is irrellevant.

Like Dean says be deliberate, use your brain, and have a good time. This is a hobby, something to be enjoyed. We are dedicated to taking the boring out of this mundane task and make it something worth enjoying. So have fun.

I wish the best of luck to you in your shaving endeavors.

I guess I missed this one until now,,,,,

I could only answer for my edges, but with every razor I hone, I make sure to include a dated letter with the razor, telling how the razor was honed, and that I have test shaved that razor, sterilized it, and re-stropped it.....

I do actually state in the letter that I want your first shave to be on me, not on your ability to strop or lack of ability to stop, so I ask please just rinse the oil off the razor and shave for your first time... This also gives the razor's owner should they actually be a newbie a reference point for their stropping ability on the next shave also....

It is as optimum, as I can possibly get the razor to them.... Yes for the purists it has been in the mail for about 3 days and I bet you would re-strop it anyway, but I can't as of yet, control the USPS

I started doing the letter after I saw so many questions about this on the forums...

The key being that you well oil the blade before sending it out, thereby minimizing any need for stropping to improve the oxidzed edge.

Good point that I forgot to mention. Under the microscope, I have seen oxidation appear in less than a half hour on some razors. For that reason I always strop and oil right after honing so I didn't give a thought to the fact that someone else might not.

Originally Posted by Utopian

Good point that I forgot to mention. Under the microscope, I have seen oxidation appear in less than a half hour on some razors. For that reason I always strop and oil right after honing so I didn't give a thought to the fact that someone else might not.

+1 on that. A coat of oil is good insurance. If that oxidation eventually becomes visible to the naked eye you've likely got yourself a pit.

Dean, that was a great write up.
You offered many valid points.
Nevertheless, I would like to make one remark. I often wonder about the sharpness of razors. I think that in the old days, they were generally less sharp than the edges used by many of us today. In the old days, a boy learned to shave with the sharpness his father managed to get with the hones that were available. What the blade offered in sharpness needed to be taken as such, and where the sharpness left something to be desired, shave technique had to make up for it. It takes a tad more pressure than a sharper blade, the shaving angle needs to be more precise, scything motions perfected, skin stretching mastered. The boy had a light beard that became coarser together with his growing avidness as a shaver.
Today, Lynn, or another honemeister, sends a razor to a grown boy, that has the modern world's patience, and indeed: in his inexperienced hands, the razor does not remove whiskers as he expected it would. The razor is declared not shaveready (while in fact it is the grown boy that is not quite shaveready) and the honemeister declared a fraud (of course no newbie puts it in his first post so bluntly, but we've all read between the lines of such posts written in utter frustration).
My point is that seasoned shavers are tweaked in with their edges, and that shavereadiness is a variable, in function of one's beard, skills, habits and preferences. (How about that, Nelson?)

About stropping. I'd like to test my edges, TPTs, HHTs, mowing armhair, I don't care. I am pretty sure that stropping an edge, even on the very first time after it is honed, affects all those tests. I've never shaved without stropping, so I can't tell about that "test". It is clear to me that stropping does something, and that an edge should always be stropped, whether Glen does it up front (and oils the blade), or Glen's customer does it before the shave. I have one exception, and thats when I finish on a CrO-pasted strop (can't speak for diamond compounds), but even then, I strop on leather as well, although I don't notice the difference.

Bart.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I guess I missed this one until now,,,,,

I could only answer for my edges, but with every razor I hone, I make sure to include a dated letter with the razor, telling how the razor was honed, and that I have test shaved that razor, sterilized it, and re-stropped it.....

I do actually state in the letter that I want your first shave to be on me, not on your ability to strop or lack of ability to stop, so I ask please just rinse the oil off the razor and shave for your first time... This also gives the razor's owner should they actually be a newbie a reference point for their stropping ability on the next shave also....

It is as optimum, as I can possibly get the razor to them.... Yes for the purists it has been in the mail for about 3 days and I bet you would re-strop it anyway, but I can't as of yet, control the USPS

I started doing the letter after I saw so many questions about this on the forums...

You beat me to it... I was gonna post about that letter you include with your sharpened razors.

I strop daily so that my razor stays shave ready. If someone strops it for me, I don't need to strop it, although, it certainly won't hurt the razor if I do so.

Let me prove it with a quote I just found:

A shave ready razor has already been stropped, or else it is not yet shave ready.
- Lee