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I came accross this on ebay :
Attachment 175480
The instructions say to strop 2 or 3 times on leather ! I also have a few old instructions that appear on boxes and allot suggest very minimal stropping, the most i have seen i think was 6 passes.
It has got me thinking if our 80-100 passes is way over the top?
It may very well be a case of YMMV but i was wondering where the increased number suggested today came from and why in the olden days the number of strokes suggested is way way less :)
Thank you for posting this and I look forward to following the thread.
Something I have been thinking about lately.
Smooth Shaving...
Yea, sorta makes you wonder. I am going to follow this too. IIRC from when I was a kid the barbers did not do 80-100 strokes on leather before shaving a customer. If I had to guess from failing memory it would less than 20 strokes.
Bob
Thanks for posting it. Very interesting. I'm following the thread.
Och... "2 or 3 times", and each time, for 20-30 passes!
Agree, Bob. Of course we don't know what they did (other than read girly magazines) in the dead times when there were no customers. I wonder if they stropped then, or freshen on their barber hones. IIRC my barber had 4 or 5 SRs lined up on a towel along with his scissors.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
If i remember correctly, i read a thread some time ago, and it said something alon the lines of - on european forums the recommended number of laps is considerably less than is recommended here.
I can only suggest an experement whereby you strop and use a razor 80-100 laps for 2-3 weeks, then strop and use the same razor for 2-6 laps until the edge degrades, then refresh, strop and use the razor for 2-6 laps for a week or two, noting if the edge degrades, then strop and use the razor for 80-100 laps and see if the edge improves.
Obviously for controls you would need to shave at the same time every day, with the same prep, and the same lather making and application.
Possibly in the old days people had only one razor, so you werent dealing with degradation from lack of use. I used a razor that had been laid up for a week or two and noticed a distinct degradation, to the point that mid shave i did 20 or so laps and got an improvement, and after a few shaves daily, and doinfg around 50 laps the shave improved. But i had no controls in place to ensure that all of the other variables were the same.
In the USA it is common knowledge, based on long experience, that in all areas except taxes and alimony, that more is better. :rolleyes:
That said, in the 1980s 70 year old, 50 years barbering, Frank Natale looked at me gravely and told me, "You can overstrop a razor." I don't remember what he recommended as far as laps. He also told me that if I did more than 5 'weight of the blade' round trips on a coticule I might 'lose the edge.'
So with that bit of wisdom in mind I soon gave up trying to maintain my 1980s stable of straight razors, and went back to the Gillette Good News for another 20 + years. Coming to SRP, learning to hone, learning that there ain't nothing wrong with 50 linen, 50 leather, I have been maintaining and shaving with straight razors almost daily for the past 7 years. So ....... as my grandpa used to say, "Believe half of what you see, and nothing that you read." ........ Unless of course I post it. :chapeau
Probably, we do strop more than needed, but I don’t think there is any harm being done.
I used to strop way more laps with paste removing most stria. As an experiment, I cut the number of laps in half leaving much of the stria and did not notice degradation in the quality of the shave.
As many here have discovered, the polish of the blade does not equate with the quality of the shave at a certain point.
Probably more important than polishing is the re-aligning of the edge and that does not take many laps.
Stropping is under rated, especially on linen, keeping the edge free of oxidation which will eat an edge. A barber’s razor will get many more laps daily than a razor that is use once a day and as a result will be much cleaner and free of contaminants that cause oxidation.
Myself after honing I do 10 linen and 40 leather. For my shave I do 20 before and 20 after On leather of course.
Check out an old thread in stropping called "the grand experiment".Quote:
Originally Posted by cariocarj01
As I recall the old barbers stropped about 20 strokes or so. of course time is money and they stropped for every customer and since they used a straight for haircutting too that was a lot of stropping throughout the day even considering changing razors a few times.
I think the general recommendation on the site has been between 40-60 strokes not 80-100.
I couldn't count the "FWAPS" as fast as Fred stropped.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
In 1971 (the same year the US Army joined me and I had my only professional shave) Fred told me he shaved someone everyday: himself. But for that, he only did necks and sideburn trimming. 40 necks, 80 sideburn trims and a self shave per day? That's barely the equal of a couple of a couple of man-beards. 20 FWAPS on linen/leather for my sideburns and 18 year old pencil neck is a lot of stropping if you ask me.
"FWAPS" I like that, very descriptive.Quote:
Originally Posted by MisterMoo
Bob
Well, my attitude to it is that "too much" is merely a function of the stropper and nothing else. If you have the time and inclination to do 200 laps before and after each shave who's to tell you that's too much?
Sure, perhaps in terms of the shaving edge you don't need that many laps. Sure, for old time barbers time was money so they did what they could get away with - but how much stropping did they do to get to the point where they could almost literally fly that razor over the strop?
Strop away, I say - and the more the merrier! Too much stropping is never enough. And if you are so time poor that a few extra minutes of stropping is a serious problem for you, Mr Gillette has a solution. :)
James.
Lol that made me smile :DQuote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
Interesting stuff, me personally I like the stropping. For one it gives the lather time to do its thing and secondly I find it odly relaxing !
I suspect that this one is going to be a "many roads to sharp" scenario, and as I'm begging to understand, like most things in this game it comes down to Personal preference :D
Its nice to get peoples points of view though.
Who knows, maybe we like stropping because its that whole back and fourth motion over 24inch :w
Like a lot of things about this sport, we can all try more, less, inbetween. Experiment with what works best for us. We can change our minds, and our routines too. I posted a long while ago about reading an old-old shaving book that claimed we didn't have to strop before the shave, as long as we stropped after the shave.
So for 2, or maybe it was 3, long weeks, with a Ralf Aust, and a TI, I rotated and only did 20 laps on leather after the shave. Worked very well. Then I began shaving with many of my different razors, since I always do 20 after the shave, and just picked them up and shaved. That worked just as well. Did that for months until one day I got the urge to strop before the shave. Been doing 40 and 40 ever since ...... year or more now. No rules, just what works for you and your kit.
Gentlemen,
These days, I strop 60 on linen, 120 on leather and 30 on palm. If I were to cut that ratio in half, I doubt it would make much of a difference to the razor's edge. The barbers of old, I assume, limited their stropping ratio to just a few strokes because of time limitations. Not only that, but again I assume, they saw no measurable difference between five strokes or ten. I assume. The reason I prefer a higher ration is because I use only five to seven inches on the strop. What's more, I enjoy stropping.
I really love to strop but i try to keep telling myself quality first...quantity second.
I think in the old days for barbers, stropping was as much a show as to dress the edge. The one thing I remember from back then very vividly was Andy the barber slapping that razor onto the strop and the slapping sound it made. Of course we don't strop like that. It's kind of similar to going into a Japanese Restaurant and they come out to cook at your table and they juggle the knives and tools around as they cook. All part of the show.
Another consideration, visa vis barbers, that just occurred to me ........ Lynn told me his right hand is darn near twice as big as his left from continually honing/stropping razors one after another. Back in the golden days of barbers doing straight razor shaves, I imagine they were pacing themselves a bit, not only in terms of time for waiting customers, but in avoiding repetitive stress injury, even though it wasn't called that back then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Obie
My barber di the same in good old Baltimore, 12 Maryland...before zip codes.Quote:
Originally Posted by thebigspendur
True that. Maybe some of you guys remember a video that was going around 7 or 8 years ago of a barber stropping. I think his name was Mr Ham?? (Memory is becoming rubbish as I get older, sorry).
He was slapping that razor around like there was no tomorrow. I've not been able to find that video for ages now - shame really, it was very entertaining (albeit quite short IIRC).
James.
Thanks for the informative post OP; always good to see how they did this back in the day. On the other extreme, some of us are experimenting with over-stropping, and getting great results. All of my current rotation is finished on either a Gokumyo 20k, or an Escher. And since I got my Hidestoart English Bridle, I love stropping so much that all of them get 150-200 strokes between shaves. Results? The best and smoothest shaves I've ever had. YMMV and all that as usual.
This thread has been on my mind. While I prefer a less is more approach with maintaining razors *and* also maintain that slower, more accurate and delicate laps is more effective that a bunch of hasty laps on the leather, I shudder to think that 2-3 laps is enough. For me, that is.
I've proved to myself that I can take an edge that just faintly has the grab on the TP test and turn it into a biting monster with about 80 laps. Just did it again minutes ago. I would not have shaved with it before the stropping and certainly not with 2-3 laps.
I feel ample stropping is critical to shave success and, without it, mediocrity or, even worse, failure.
Interesting thread. In a spanish forum I picked a routine for strong beards that stropped about 60 before and 25 before second pass, then 25 after. I do that, I have an SRD 2"strop, I do 20-25 on webbing+ 40-60 leather, first pass, then 15-25 on leather for the second. After I do 15-25. The smaller number is if I'm in a hurry. If I don't have time, It's time for the DE.
When thebigspendur did "the grand experiment" IIRC his conclusion was that beyond 60 round trips he wasn't hurting anything, but he wasn't improving anything either. Of course that was only his impression, and it must be so subtle. We have had guys here in the past, who were strop enthusiasts, that had a progression of stropping. One in particular had like 3 high end strops and would do quite a bit , hundreds of laps IIRC. He referred to it as 'finish stropping.' Whatever floats our boat.Quote:
Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad
Speaking of progressions, here are three threads from the past encompassing thebigspendur's "grand experiment."
http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ght=experiment
http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ght=experiment
http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ght=experiment
I think it might be hard to compare stropping routines. First, stropping, done correctly, is a very forgiving action. You could probably strop all day long and not cause any damage. Additionally, stropping all day would eventually improve an edge that had striations on the bevel from a low pass count in finishing, but might not ever improve an edge that was honed to a high polish with a high pass count while finishing.
I also believe that each person produces a different amount of edge damage when shaving. So there could be a different amount of "repair" needed.
I can't say for sure though, as I've stopped breaking into people's bathrooms and checking on their final polishing.
I usually go about six months to a year between honing now (I don't shave every day) and find that the need for stropping, both in action and passes, seems to increase over time (between honing iterations).
Yes, Jimmy, that makes sense. Good thinking. Barbers were faced with many considerations in stropping. If you watch Liam Finnegan, the great Irish barber at the Waldorf barbershop in Dublin, his strokes are relatively few even though he is doing a stropping demonstration. I bet when preparing to shave, he uses far fewer strokes than we see on the video. By the way, his stropping is joy to watch.Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
