Thread: Weak handed stropping

Has anyone else been in the situation where you've been forced to use your non-dominant hand for stropping? Yesterday I cut the end of my right thumb off on a table saw and with a rather large bandage, and sore thumb, can't strop my razors with my right hand, and I'm here to say that stropping with my left hand is weird indeed. I can do it, but man is it a slow and careful process as I have to think my way through every stroke, not to mention I had to keep reminding my right arm to pull the strop taut.

Shaving worked OK as I selected a razor with a thumb rest so the razor nestled in quite well and only slid minimally on the bandage. I made a promise to myself that the Norelco was going to be an absolute last resort.

Now I'm wondering what sort of mess I can make of things when I need to touch up a blade on the coticule. That'll be interesting I'm sure.

The heck of it is I've been using these tools for 50 years. I thought that I had it pretty well figured out by now. You can say that again.

Bummer, Bruce. Did you take a little off the top or in this case, the tip? Or, did you lose a significant portion of that digit?

I hope you recover soon.

Chris L

Thats a bummer. I couldn't strop with my off hand to save my life. Sorry to hear about your thumb. Your supposed to get cut with a razor. Your giving power tools a bad name.

Ow! That hurts just thinking about it...

I'm left-handed but do all sorts of things right-handed for various reasons. (For example, I play guitar right-handed). The key to learning to use your off-side ts to go slowly. Don't try to achieve the same speed & dexterity that you have on your dominant side, just let it come in its own good time. Eventually using your off-hand will feel just as natural (at least for that particular activity) as your dominant hand.

Chrisl,

Fortunately like the haircut, I only took a little off the top.

Alan,

Apparently those power tools speak well enough to give themselves names - something akin to Mr. Don't Mess With Me.

Johnny,

I'm somewhat ambidexterous in that for the life of me I cannot deal cards with my right hand and used to be able to write legibly on a blackboard with my left hand, but stropping is something else. At least I will have some time to practice those strokes.

Ol' 9-15/16 will just have to learn to make do, but it is remarkable how dependent one becomes on what one used to be attached to.