Thread: Lifting blade from strop

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Speed kills… a strop. I think most stropping problems with novices are from trying to imitate what they have seen in the movies and TV.

Even if you go slow and do a half lap every second, one way, it will only take a minute to do 30 full laps.

Royalcake, try holding alternating corners of the tang between the thumb and forefinger, rolling the tang at the flip like turning a knob.

You can torque the tang a bit to keep the spine or edge on the strop, as opposed to downward pressure.

Thanks Marty. Yeah that's sort of what I do. I like being able to control the pressure that way to have a light touch. Seems like you get good feedback. Thanks

@Euclid440: Thanks for the advice about how to hold the tangs. It does make a difference not only in rolling but insuring that the blade maintains contact with the strop.

Originally Posted by Obie

Good show, Rusty. Speeding and lifting the blade from the strop invite the folded edge. As for the joys of stropping on a delicious strop, sometimes I go two or three hundred strokes on leather, not because my blades needs it, no, because I get into a zen state and fade away. Stropping is one of my preferred activities in the straight razor world.

You know Obie since stropping is your favorite activity why not make it a theme in your next novel?

I can see it now. Following a vintage strop from it's creation in say 1920 through an SRP member today and their life stories and how they might have crossed paths and intermingled without ever knowing it. Maybe the way the strop may have affected their lives like the guy at the factory who while cutting the leather accidentally cut 3 fingers off. if it's a best seller I want a cut though-har har.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

You know Obie since stropping is your favorite activity why not make it a theme in your next novel?

I can see it now. Following a vintage strop from it's creation in say 1920 through an SRP member today and their life stories and how they might have crossed paths and intermingled without ever knowing it. Maybe the way the strop may have affected their lives like the guy at the factory who while cutting the leather accidentally cut 3 fingers off. if it's a best seller I want a cut though-har har.

Spendur, my friend, what a fabulous suggestion. I can make it the saga of two Illinois strops, No. 827 and No. 127, that fall in love, get married and give birth to a Kanayama/Kanoyama 80000. Oh, yes, a bestseller!

I am getting much better results since I slowed down and paid attention to the edge maintaining contact with the strop. And slowing down is not a negative. As someone else said, stropping gets you into a kind of zen state and I find myself doing 100+ laps.