Quote Originally Posted by mparker762
Joe, that hasn't been my experience at all, not on my own blades, and not with any honemeister-honed razors. Even when sharpened equally well, all of my Friodurs and Swedes and my one TI make it through a shave without stropping, but only one of the rest will do it (a 8/8 W&B frameback). A quick stropping (~ 15 laps) gets them in good enough shape to go against the grain comfortably though. I've got a really flexible "singing" blade that needs stropping mid-pass, so I rarely use it except on the weekend.

In my experience, finer grit finishes fare worse than coarser finishes; 0.25 micron edges won't last a single pass even on my best razors, 0.5 micron does better but only one of my razors will go an entire shave with it, even my friodurs need stropping mid-shave. If I stop at 1 micron then the Friodurs will go an entire shave just fine, but my Wade and Butchers still need a mid-shave stropping. I rarely go finer than 1 micron nowadays, and for most I stop at either the 8k or the translucent arkansas.

I've got one razor that stands above the rest, the TI Pierre Theirs LE. With that one I can finish the blade on .5 micron chromium oxide, and it will make it through both passes of the shave without stropping and at the end it will still pop the hairs on the underside of my arm (though not quite as readily as it did immediately after stropping). And it sounds like papabull has hand-forged a razor for himself that performs similarly, so I'm hopeful that I can one day enjoy the sort of shaving performance the rest of you are currently enjoying.

Hmm...maybe my stubble ain't as tough as it thought it was. I've just never had one I had to strop mid-shave, and I've gone through a few. I suppose experience varies (obviously). Mine wasn't meant to be the definitive answer, just a theory. I suppose whatever it takes to make it shave right is what you have to do...it just seems wrong to have to strop a razor in the middle of the shave. My experience may be a little skewed, though, since I'm normally shaving with more than one razor...it seems I only shave to test nowadays. (and as Martha Stewart says, "That's a good thing")