Thread: beginner question- letting the razor rest

While I'm no steel chemist, I have plenty of experience forging, lathing, milling, heat-treating, shearing, etc. to say that the idea that a metal blade needs to rest after use seems like, as dave5225 put it, poppycock. If it were the case, sheet metal workers, sheering factories, and butchers would be going through blades like no other. Tobacco pipes need resting after use, sure, but wood is not steel. What happens in a steel rest? The molecules dry out, expel shaving soap residues, and somehow sturdy themselves for the next strop? I don't think so. Logic tells me that if it's common practice to strop just before a shave, the action of stropping itself modifies the steel molecules more so than reusing the razor every 12 or 24 hours.