Thread: Stropping: Flat strop or hanging strop?

I understand that stropping between shaves is good for many shaves. I've heard up to 50 or so. I'm sure that depends on different things including the texture of your beard. When using a hanging strop this creates a convex shape to form because the strop will have a certain amount of curve to it. At some point the stropped edge will stop shaving well and need to be honed on stones to create new flat bevels. In addition to learning to shave i've also been working on my honing skills. To improve I need to practice so I have been honing my razors every 3 or 4 shaves. Also, after trying and failing to get good at using a hanging strop I have been using my bench strops. I recently made 3 strops with abrasive of .5, .25 and .1 micron sprays. I glued a sheet of glass to 3/4" plywood and thin leather on top of the glass. These are about as flat as I can make them. I have been using up to an 8k Shapton glass stone then strop. It seems I can go from the 8k to the .1 micron strop ok without using the .5 or the .25 micron strops. Actually, I think using any one of the 3 strops alone is fine. The glass and the thin leather make these strops flat. I don't use enough pressure to compress the leather which would round the edge off a little while leaving it very sharp (for a while). So the bevels on my razors should not become as convexed as if I were using a hanging strop. Is this an accurate statement? Here is my question. Since I'm using flat strops can I go longer (more shaves) between using the stones? Seems to me I could go 6 months just stropping on flat strops before hones would be needed, maybe longer. How do you guys feel about this? Any help is appreciated.

Jack

From all the reading I've done it is possible to convex the edge but it would take a lot of stropping to achieve this and a convex edge is a bit stronger than a flat edge and there would be no appreciable difference in the shave. Glen did an experiment with this and could not get an edg to convex in a decent amount of time and gave up. Hope this helps and maybe look up Glens thread.

Originally Posted by eddy79

From all the reading I've done it is possible to convex the edge but it would take a lot of stropping to achieve this and a convex edge is a bit stronger than a flat edge and there would be no appreciable difference in the shave. Glen did an experiment with this and could not get an edg to convex in a decent amount of time and gave up. Hope this helps and maybe look up Glens thread.

I agree - there's nothing wrong with a convex edge if you were to form one by stropping; but I doubt this is possible on plain leather with no abrasives.

-john

Originally Posted by jackknifeh

I understand that stropping between shaves is good for many shaves. I've heard up to 50 or so. I'm sure that depends on different things including the texture of your beard. When using a hanging strop this creates a convex shape to form because the strop will have a certain amount of curve to it. At some point the stropped edge will stop shaving well and need to be honed on stones to create new flat bevels. In addition to learning to shave i've also been working on my honing skills. To improve I need to practice so I have been honing my razors every 3 or 4 shaves. Also, after trying and failing to get good at using a hanging strop I have been using my bench strops. I recently made 3 strops with abrasive of .5, .25 and .1 micron sprays. I glued a sheet of glass to 3/4" plywood and thin leather on top of the glass. These are about as flat as I can make them. I have been using up to an 8k Shapton glass stone then strop. It seems I can go from the 8k to the .1 micron strop ok without using the .5 or the .25 micron strops. Actually, I think using any one of the 3 strops alone is fine. The glass and the thin leather make these strops flat. I don't use enough pressure to compress the leather which would round the edge off a little while leaving it very sharp (for a while). So the bevels on my razors should not become as convexed as if I were using a hanging strop. Is this an accurate statement? Here is my question. Since I'm using flat strops can I go longer (more shaves) between using the stones? Seems to me I could go 6 months just stropping on flat strops before hones would be needed, maybe longer. How do you guys feel about this? Any help is appreciated.

Jack

Maybe you're over-thinking this? Also hones/honing, strops/stropping variations on a theme but different. Especially pasted stropping-which is "stoneless honing" really. But that anything after 1k rock is more about polishing the bevel than shaping it.

Glen kept a razor going until he aborted the experiment on CrOx*. Hanging strop. There is no crime in using hanging strop properly. About half of the 3rd vid in one of Glen's series of honing vids, shows him stropping.

Check it out. http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...xperiment.html

and "stoptober" vids/comments thread here somewhere.

*Meaning that that particular razor, given Glen's technique, paste, an schedule of stropping could go _indefinitely_ without ever going back to hone for touch up.




Here's Lynn's take: