Ok, mega confused here

While waiting on my razor to come in, I've been doing some youtube searches etc and I've come across something that's gotten me flabbergasted. I originally thought that stropping was used to sharpen the blade to prevent a dull shave, but I saw a video where the dude said that stropping isn't used to sharpen blades, it's used to clean them. (How To Shave With A Straight Razor - YouTube)

Then I saw what made me think that maybe honing and sharpening are two different things and that you use a waterstone to sharpen, and leather strops to clean and polish ( Straight Razor Honing - Part 1: Intro - YouTube )

and by now I'm totally confused. Can someone clear it up for me? Or an article or source that pans it out?

sorry, I didn't know posting the link embedded the video.

Here's a link that contains videos from a number of our members. Some videos are just interesting stuff that members have added. You can sift through and find some pretty good stuff by Lynn and a number of others. Enjoy!!

Videos


Here's a video you should watch.

Straight Razor Stropping for Beginners - YouTube

Howard :)

While stropping does help clean the edge you missed the other part where he says it helps align and polish the edge too. No, in the strictest sense stropping does not sharpen a blade unless you use a pasted strop.

Honing a razor is sharpening the razor. It is sharpened on a progression of honing stones till the desired sharpness is reached. At least that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Bob

hello Jeffrey and welcome to SRP!

well, good news for you, you dont have to worry about honing for several months, stropping on the other hand youll have to practice as soon as your razor and strop arrives, assuming you have purchased a strop as well!

stropping does not sharpen a blade. while sharpening requires the use of an abrasive surface to remove metal particle from a dulled edge to sharpen it, stopping only polishes and re-aligns the already sharp edge after a razor has been used to shave to ensure a much comfortable next shave. without the use of stropping the edge becomes..."crooked" and so it can not provide a shave, or a smooths have atleast. anyways you have members of much more experience coming this way so hopefully they will clarify it further. goodluck and happy shaving!

edit: the veterans and mentors have already arrived.

Stropping on clean leather, and possibly a fabric component, is generally for day to day maintenance. To be honest I'm not quite sure what it does and there is some debate surrounding stropping on leather, what I do know is that it provides me with a nice shave.

One can use a strop impregnated with abrasive compounds for sharpening. Generally you use a clean strop for daily maintenance and a stone or abrasive strop for occasional sharpening.

To start off work on shaving and stropping on clean leather. If you dull the edge beyond what the strop can recover you can move on to more abrasive surfaces and then go back to the clean strop.

How often do you hone your razor?

Stropping can clean the bevels from skin flakes and soap left on them, but that is not the main use for stropping.

Stropping is used to realign the serrations on the edge of the razor for comfortable shave. Stropping is also very important after refreshing the edge on hones, it helps burnishing the edge and again alignment of the serrations for more comfortable shave.

We like to use the term dressing the edge to describe what a strop does. Kind of a catchall for drying, cleaning, polishing, and a bunch of other things already mentioned.