Thread: It’s all been said before, but….

Originally Posted by Elnones

Palm stropping? Really?

Really.

I do it all the time when I travel and take a Feather AC Artist Club disposable straight razor with me.
In feel and handling Feather Artist Clubs come fairly close to straight razors, unlike “shavette” type contraptions that I never had much stomach for.

The problem with the extremely sharp Feather AC blades is that they are quite rough on the first 2-3 shaves and the razor geometry does not lend itself to conventional stropping. (Feather offer a blade type that has a tiny wires strung in front of the edge, but I consider using such a “neutered” blade below me. )

Palm stropping is the way to go. There are some videos about it, but some show a different way of stropping.
I strop on the area between the little finger and wrist (hypothenar eminence), while I have seen at least one video that uses the area between the thumb and the wrist (thenar eminence).

It is perfectly safe and works actually quite well.
If no strop is at hand, I even use it on conventional straights.

Originally Posted by Elnones

Thanks. It occurs to me that the internet has made taking straight razor shaving up much easier than it must have beebpn in the past. I watched many videos on how to do it before I put razor to face. Here’s a question. Right now I have a really inexpensive strop. As I get into this, should I spend more on a better one?

According to my practises you should have many.

Originally Posted by RezDog

According to my practises you should have many.

Yes, one should.

There is the obvious choice of strop materials, but there are also several designs other than the ubiquitous hanging strop, like bench, loom and paddle strops.

After years of experimenting I still have a hanging strop in the bathroom to give the razor a few laps after the shave, but in my bedroom I have a Supex 77 paddle strop to prepare razors for shaves. This is a French design that consists of exchangeable plates that are magnetically held in place and supported on both ends. This gives the plate the right amount of flexibility, you have a choice among several materials, and I just love how this well thought-out design prefoms.

It took me while to settle down on this design and on the way I tried several different strops, most of which I have discarded now.


B.

Originally Posted by RezDog

According to my practises you should have many.

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