Thread: How many times do you strop in a shave session?

Do you have a Barber's Hone or similar? Maybe spending some time there then stropping will get you there? Otherwise, time to look for a Local Mentor or send it for Honing would be my advice. Just don't get so focused/determned that you suffer an uncomfortable shave just to get through it without stropping.

Like a lot of others, I just Strop once... 20 on Felt then 80 on English Bridle Leather before I shave and that's it. I use Tuf-Glide on the steel after each shave so no worries about corrosion between shaves.

A single stropping session before the shave is usual these days, but most of us do multi-pass shaves which only fussy clients would have demanded from their barbers in years gone by. I'd be surprised if the old barbers hadn't stropped their razors before starting the second pass. I wish I'd taken more notice as a kid, back when there were real barber shops.

Originally Posted by Maladroit

A single stropping session before the shave is usual these days, but most of us do multi-pass shaves which only fussy clients would have demanded from their barbers in years gone by. I'd be surprised if the old barbers hadn't stropped their razors before starting the second pass. I wish I'd taken more notice as a kid, back when there were real barber shops.

I miss those days

I got a SR shave every time I got a haircut back in the 50's & 60's. My barber was a family friend. He would strop a couple times during each shave and always did two passes

Originally Posted by Prahston

Do you have a Barber's Hone or similar? Maybe spending some time there then stropping will get you there? Otherwise, time to look for a Local Mentor or send it for Honing would be my advice. Just don't get so focused/determned that you suffer an uncomfortable shave just to get through it without stropping.

Like a lot of others, I just Strop once... 20 on Felt then 80 on English Bridle Leather before I shave and that's it. I use Tuf-Glide on the steel after each shave so no worries about corrosion between shaves.

Good thing is I do have a mentor relatively near me that I've started conversing with. I think my issues are lying with "sneaking up on the edge". To elaborate, I'm sure that the bevel is set. My mentor confirmed that, however what I think I'm doing is not knowing when to stop honing either at the bevel set or somewhere in my progression allowing me to thin out my edge too much, thus the result becomes a dull edge before I finish with my headshave. Plus another added factor is I'm still working on my technique when it comes to my head.

40-50 on the fabric (tight or coarse weave Tony Miller cotton..depends on the strop) and then another 40-50 on the leather before use. Afterwards, 15-20 laps on the fabric after drying the razor off. Never had an issue following this routine.

You have an edge quality issue, most probably caused by stropping with too much pressure or an incomplete shaving edge.

Just look at the edge straight down with magnification. Any shiny spots are where the bevels are no-longer meeting.

Depending on what you see, will determine if you need stropping, touch-up or full bevel re-set.

If you are having to strop in the middle of a shave, the edge was not shave ready when you started.

Before I started to progress beyond the bevel set, I looked down with mag and had no shiny spots and no lines. After I finished it was the same. I didn't check after the strop just shave tested and it had a clean cut no pull. But as the shave progressed it began to tug and by the end before a post shave stropping there was a clean thin uniform line on the bevel when looking at the edge again under mag.

Well...I thought that I would post a follow-up. I rehoned my razor, and I had to go back to the basics. Before I was using a progression method, and I was consistently getting an edge that would not hold up to the full shave. So I thought I would go back and do a pyramid. I went back and reestablished my bevel on the 2k. pyramided on the 4k and 8k, up to 20 strokes on the 8k got a good test shave, then finished on the 16k for about 20 strokes with 10 on crox. After stropping I was able to get a complete enjoyable dfs shave without re-stropping. Thanks guys for pointing me in the right direction.

Twice...before i do 15-20 linen and 60-80 leather; after i do 10 or so linen and 30-40 leather.