Can you over strop?

Being new, I'm practicing stropping. Is it possible to over-strop a blade?

Just curious :)

Paul

Hey again Paul

You probably really can't overstrop per se. But you can bend the edge over and dull it by incorrect stropping. And given stropping is a reasonably physical exercise, fatigue can set in after a while and effect your technique, which can lead to cut strops or dulled edges. Slow and careful is the best way to start.

James.

I'm no strop meister but I think what you are aiming for is draw on the strop. For me this seems to come an go as I'm stropping, so when I feel some draw I keep going for a bit then stop 'n' shave.

The general consensus on stropping is that you should do it somewhere between 30 and 60 laps, before shaving. Anything more than 60 seems to have little effect on the blade; someone posted an experiment on this around here somewhere, I think. Excessive stropping does, as Jimbo observed, increase the risk of poor technique or inattention. Some strop for a few laps after they finish shaving, usually to ensure that the edge of the blade is dry (the rest of the blade is dried with a towel, TP, or whatever; a strop will do little to dry within the hollow of a ground razor, not to mention water is not really good for the strop, so I am told).

As far as draw, there seems to be a lot of different opinions floating around, it seems to be a personal choice. I also find that the amount of draw I experience varies as I stop, usually due to minor changes in how I am holding the razor. Therefore, I find it a useful metric to gauge the consistency of my technique.

- Michael

Yes I was the one who did the experiment. Its filed away under the Grand Experiment. About 60 passes turned out to be the best number. More than that did nothing to increase the sharpness of the edge.

As far as draw goes remember that there are some strops that simply have none so you can't always go by that. You have to know the characteristics of your strop and go by that.

I'm no expert by any measure. So I set out to read everything here once and did. I also check my work with a microscope.

For a hone I have a purpose made barber's hone. It has one smooth side and the other has regularly spaced himispherical holes. The idea of the holes is to prevent a wire edge. I tried various things with the hone to figure out where I should stop with the holes and switch to the smooth side. For a maintenace honing I do about 10 passes on the hole side and four on the smooth side.

The razor is ready to shave with at this point with no stropping. However, the hone leaves some long teeth and some short ones on the edge. The long ones will bend over after one shave. The strop will remove the long ones and bring the small ones into plane with the edge in less than 10 good passes. As mentioned elsewhere one can (and I do) sometimes bend the edge over by stopping improperly. So I think the over stropping is either when the strop begins to break off the tiny teeth or when the person stropping gets in a hurry and bends them.

The teeth I'm talking about can not be seen with the naked eye and even at 400x power there are teeth that one can see which were not visable at 40x.

I'm guessing here but I think the hone is in the 5,000 grit range. It could be as low as 4,000 though. Anyone here know what range the barber's hones were made in?

I don't think you can overstrop as long as you use good technique -- within reason I suppose ----- just hold back when you get to the millionth or so stroke.



Justin

I've read the Grand Experiment (well worth reading, by the way). And did some experimenting based on BigSpendur's results.

What I find works for me kind of depends on the razor. My Dovo gets maximum benefit around 60 strokes linen and 60 strokes leather while my Wapienica seems to get maximum benefit from 45 strokes linen/leather.

As for draw, I get a strong draw on my Dovo full hollow and slight draw on my Wapienica half hollow (on the same strop). Either way, I know when I start to feel draw that I'm reaching the point of best result.