Thread: Strop Seems to Dull

This is a great thread.

I too have been flummoxed by my stropping technique. I would “freshen up” my razor with a barber hone (Super Punjab) and subsequently conduct a very satisfying hanging hair test (HHT). Then I’d strop away, skipping the cotton and going immediately to the leather. (I’m using a simple Illinois Razor Strop No. 206.) After ~50 strokes I’d perform another HHT and the results seemed to emulate those of a butter knife rather than a fine shaving instrument.*

Needless to say, this distressed me. I’ve been stropping off and on for the last 15 years and I think I’m pretty good at it. I strop with speed and a light touch. I make sure to lay the razor flat across the strop and use an X pattern without causing the strop to bend. And so forth and so on. What I mean to say is I know that I am doing everything right but somehow my strop was dulling my razor instead of restoring its edge. Nonetheless, grasping at straws, I kept lightening my touch. I think by the end, my razor was merely hovering over the strop, so crazy had I become in getting my razor sharp again.

I even tried a little improvisation. I would lead the heal of the razor and lag the toe such that the longitudinal axis of the blade was about 30 degrees off of perpendicular to the strop. I know this is rather uncouth and I wouldn’t recommend it as standard operating procedure, but I was surprised to find that it seemed to improve the level of sharpness, though only moderately.

Then I figured it out.

I had recently treated the leather with LEXOL leather conditioner which improved the strop’s draw and effectiveness. Unfortunately, after a few days, the leather started to feel funny. The draw increased significantly and after stropping, I would notice bits of leather gunk collecting on my razor just behind the spine. I surmise that this increased draw and extra gunk was the culprit, causing the razor’s edge to warp and curl on a microscopic level, dulling the blade.

The solution:

I lathered up my shaving cream and spread it liberally on the leather. I let this sit long enough for the lather to dry out completely. Then I simply brushed away any remaining residue with my hand. The result was a completely restored strop with a very nice light draw, my personal preference. Oh, and the HHT after stropping was significantly improved over the HHT right after honing.

In conclusion:

Now there are certainly members of this forum more knowledgeable than I, but I’m going to speculate about what lathering up the leather really does. Some shaving soaps such as Williams contain lanolin and other moisturizing oils. I suspect the leather sucks up water from a good, frothy lather. Along with the water, some of the oils from these soaps are also absorbed. Eventually the water evaporates, leaving behind the moisturizing oils. That’s why it is important to let the lather air dry then simply rub away the excess. Rinsing the leather would certainly remove the dried lather but it would also take important conditioners with it, drying out the strop and potentially damaging it. So I would think, as long as your strop has been dressed with some sort of oil and your shaving soap contains some form of skin moisturizer, this treatment would be quite effective and beneficial. It was dramatically so for me! I’m curious what others might think and welcome thoughts, suggestions, or criticisms.

Peter

*I am of the belief that stropping after honing is a good idea. You’re realigning metal by stroking in a direction opposite to that which you were honing. It makes sense that there might be microscopic burrs, etc. that effective stropping would eliminate or, at the very least, ameliorate. After all, if stropping immediately after honing didn’t improve the keenness of your edge that would indicate that one should abandon the technique of stropping altogether and simply hone to improve a razor’s edge. In other words, if stropping never restores the sharpness of honing, why strop at all?