Do we strop too much ?

[mike1011]

I came accross this on ebay :



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

[MJC]

Thank you for posting this and I look forward to following the thread.
Something I have been thinking about lately.

Smooth Shaving...

[BobH]

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

[cariocarj01]

Thanks for posting it. Very interesting. I'm following the thread.

[JBHoren]

Och... "2 or 3 times", and each time, for 20-30 passes!

[thebigspendur]

Thanks for posting it. Very interesting. I'm following the thread.

Check out an old thread in stropping called "the grand experiment".

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.

[Haroldg48]

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

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.

[MisterMoo]

...If I had to guess from failing memory it would less than 20 strokes.

I couldn't count the "FWAPS" as fast as Fred stropped.

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.

[BobH]

I couldn't count the "FWAPS" as fast as Fred stropped.

"FWAPS" I like that, very descriptive.

Bob

[Jimbo]

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.