Thread: Pressure

I have a Whipped Dog travel strop and it goes OK.

I got my blade professionally honed by OZ and it was a great shaver when I got it back. Over the next few weeks though it was very hot and miss as to how smooth the shave was. I took more attention to my stropping and tried stropping with the strop flat on the table, which worked very well.

I just loop the end around the tap, and hold it with my thumb and index finger. It seems the best shave I get when I hold it nearly as tight as I can and keep a fair pressure on the blade as I stop. If I do 50 laps with just a light stroke it doesn't seem to shave as well. Is this the case normally? I thought for a while I should get a different strop, but some days it is super smooth so it's not just a downhill slide.

Guess I need to learn and practice more, like everything.

Any tips would be appreciated

Try to copy what you did at the table. Is the strop curling any or cupping at all. You may need less blade pressure when hanging because the bend in the strop will put more pressure on the edge. Just thinking out loud here :<0)

Originally Posted by 10Pups

Try to copy what you did at the table. Is the strop curling any or cupping at all. You may need less blade pressure when hanging because the bend in the strop will put more pressure on the edge. Just thinking out loud here :<0)

I noticed it does curl a little because it has no swivel for the loop to attache to, so the tighter I pull it the more it tends to twist

What is cupping?

Picture a hump in the middle and the sides pointing down. Like trying to strop on a snake :<0)

On a table you can get away with more blade pressure because no matter what, the thing is flat. In the air the blade sinks in a little. It puts more pressure on the edge and spine because of the angles. That is what I meant about the blade pressure thing.

Does the whipped dog strop have a handle or is it just a strip of leather all the way to the end? And how wide is it? I imagine it's probably reasonably narrow at the price point whipped dog operates at, so cupping is probably not going to be an issue. But perhaps I'm wrong. If it's a wider strop with no handle you can mitigate any cupping by wrapping the end around your extended pointer finger and locking it down between your thumb and middle finger - this spreads the load across the strop's width. You can then just adjust pressure by rotating your wrist toward or away from you.

If it is fairly narrow, more likely you just need to practice x strokes or else do half the edge for a while, then the other half. There's no need to hit the entire edge on each stroke when stropping.

James.

Thanks James it's a narrow one without a handle.

I think the twisting of the strop wasn't helping. Actually just putting a knot mid way down the loop has taken the twist out, so it's much better now.

easy and free solution!

You might want to try a felt lap/table top strop. The ones I have , I think, came from star shaving and were prepasted. One with chrome the other diamond. Nice, reasonable.

nonik, It seems like you have found the magic spot in regard to the relationship between how much pressure you are using to keep the strop taught and the pressure needed to get the edge to ever so slightly imbed itself as you strop.
You will find that the magic spot will be different with different strop and razor combinations.
That is why a minimalistic approach to straight razor shaving can be very efficient.
I have been playing with 3 or 4 at a time and find that my sucess is hit and miss.
The razors you strop will have different stropping requirements too.

It certainly seems to be working better after a bit of experimenting with technique Galaxy. As I only have one razor and one strop there's only so many options to try! At least once something works it tends to be pretty consistent.

I do sometimes lay it on the bench top and strop that way which seems to work well too. Actually 10 or 15 laps flat, then 50 hanging produces a very smooth shave with my TR Cadmans razor now. For a while I was worried the razor wasn't razing very well but the stropping has solved that now!

If Honing is King, Stropping is definitely Queen… maybe lather is Jack? :-)

The short of a story... I bought a razor from an elderly lady who said it had been her fathers and that he only used the strop to keep it shave ready. The razor looked like it was new and with only a few turns on the strop it still gave a wonderful shave.
Yes, I asked, but she didn't want to sell the Strop(;-(