Thread: Some thoughts on taping and stropping

The other day I restored a JR Torrey barber's notch medium hollow. It had very little spine wear so I taped the spine when I set the bevel and kept tape on the spine all the way up to my finishing stone. I liked the feel of this razor. The steel is soft and light and there are no adverse skin reactions. However I was having to go over places two or three times which means it was not sharp enough and had to go back to the hones.

This time I taped the spine on my 3K stone and went without tape for all the rest. The razor is sharper now but there is hone wear on the spine. I could not have my cake and eat it too. As far as the tape or no tape debate goes I think that you get a sharper edge when you finish without it but you sacrifice your spine. It is a beautiful Catch-22.

I sat down to watch a movie and had the razor next to me. About an hour into the movie I performed a hanging hair test. It failed. Then I palm stropped it for about 20 swipes. It passed. This was quite an eye opener. I think that stropping a razor is a lot like the experiment I did in my 7th grade science class when we swiped a plastic comb on our heads for about a minute to create static electricity (that was back when I had hair on my head.) I think stropping is similar. It could be that it activates a field of electrons around the blade's edge which enables it to slice a hanging hair. I might be reading too much into it. In any event it appears that my razor lost its cutting ability after about an hour or so and had to be re-stropped. For maximum effectiveness I think it is best to strop a razor immediately prior to using it.