Stropping On The Hand, Again

I know we had this discussion a while back but just saw an example yesterday.

I am walking through the shipping area at my "real" job and see one of the workers rubbing something briskly across the palm of his hand. He either had the mother of all itches or something more clever was going on. Next to him on the table was a metal box cutter, taken apart and he had the single edge razor blade in one hand, briskly stropping it across the heel of the other hand.

So, where did he learn this? He is an El Salvadoran immigrant speaking minimal English so I was unable to get much in the details but obviously he was no stranger to what he was doing.

Tony

Using human leather?! Sick, but interesting.

My barber told me to do this to smooth out an edge. This way would also provide you with good feedback to learn how to strop without nicking the strop.

I'd rather nick a strop than my thumb..

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Originally Posted by Kees

I'd rather nick a strop than my thumb..

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I think careful hand stropping (to avoid nicking a thumb) may be a good way to get a new shaver to pay attention. After all, he (or she) will later put the edge to the skin actually cutting hair. Stropping on the hand strikes me as much less demanding and dangerous than that, but the mere possibility of a cut should raise the attention level?

However, I am not sure how good for the razor hand stropping is...

Cheers
Ivo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kees

I'd rather nick a strop than my thumb..

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If you nick your thumb it will heal up. Your strop won't.

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Originally Posted by mparker762

If you nick your thumb it will heal up. Your strop won't.

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I guess conceivably you could cut a nerve or something and cause big damage...

but I am with you, I just sliced my thumb tip in a sanding accident and crazy glued it back - no problems whatsoever several days later.

Cheers
Ivo

Yeah, but if you've cut yourself with a razor you know you've got to be pretty determined to cut deeply; you would actually have to work at it. As soon as mine get in a millimeter they stick tight.

I don't have much experience cutting myself with razors but I WAS working - sanding accident, as I said :roflmao

I guess everyone who does such work has had something like this, including Bill and the others - so I wasn't too worried. Other than the fact that now I may have microscopic steel particles in my thumb...

back to topic - who likes nicked strops... but from what I hear few people have used a strop and kept it totally nick-free. Guess we can start a poll to get more data

Cheers
Ivo

On the Maestro Livi DVD where he's making a razor in Scaperia, there's a barber from Rome (the guy Lynn went to see) there doing shaves at the end. He strops the razor Maestro Livi just made on his hand before shaving Maestro Livi and Lynn with it...

I guess I'm guilty of stropping on my thumb every morning. I clean the shaving cream off of the blade with a stropping motion across my thumb rather than rinsing it under the tap. I truely do not know if this helps to keep the edge in tune, but I can say that I've never felt the need to do any mid-shave stropping as is often recommended by some of our members. I can also say that I've never taken a bite out of my thumb with the razor (although now that I've said it, I am almost assured that it will bite me tomorrow).

Just another data point,
Ed

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Originally Posted by ForestryProf

I guess I'm guilty of stropping on my thumb every morning. I clean the shaving cream off of the blade with a stropping motion across my thumb rather than rinsing it under the tap. I truely do not know if this helps to keep the edge in tune, but I can say that I've never felt the need to do any mid-shave stropping as is often recommended by some of our members. I can also say that I've never taken a bite out of my thumb with the razor (although now that I've said it, I am almost assured that it will bite me tomorrow).

Just another data point,
Ed

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That's a good point - I also wipe the cream and stubble off the edge with my thumb. I never thought about it, but I guess that's a form of stropping. Hmmm.

But hey, why not? If you can hone a razor on newsprint, why not strop on the hand? Presumably not as good as a leather strop, but if one's not available...

James.

I wipe the lather off with a wash cloth while I'm
shaving. Not quite the same, but close I suppose.



Terry

Just don't go looking for a body part to strop on in the shower. :)

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Originally Posted by murph

Just don't go looking for a body part to strop on in the shower. :)

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...and that begs the question....Why does RichZ *really* shave commando? :eek:

James.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my hands are not flat...so how do you strop on them? :hmmm:

Jordan

Flat is over rated I feel, at least on strops. Yes, 100% contact across razor and strop is desired but I doubt any strops, including mine, can stay that way through all that we subject them too. Rolling, folding, humidity, dry air, flexing, rubbing etc... all takes its toll. As long as 100% of the blade makes contact at some point or the other before the stroke or pass along the strop is completed it will do it's job. Yes, more contact is better but in most cases a slight pressure, a pliable strop held reasonably taut will result in maybe 90% contact which will do just fine. The hand or thumb is very small but if you contact 100% of the blade on each pass with even 15% of your hand the entire edge still got stropped. It may take more passes but the edge got what it needed.

On a stone though flat is VERY importnat as it is abrasive and unyielding.

Tony

In the past 3-4 months I am stropping on the palm between passes. That started mainly because of what I heard about that practice in the past, and partly because I am not happy to take the strop in the bathroom (somehow the moisture might get into the strop, but that's discussion for another thread)

So far, it is working jeeest fine, the razor is as sharp as ever. I'll continue and report in several months...

Nenad

I've found a sort of arc motion (combined with a lateral slide) over the ball of the thumb pretty much gets contact with the whole edge when wiping off stubble and cream.

James.

When I ruined my Puma's edge on a pasted paddle, and gave it to the seller for re-honing (he did worse than me) he told me "Never use a strop, only the palm of your hand".
I don't know if it's useful or not but, after shaving and rinsing the blade, I strop on hand 3-4 times to clean the blade and dry it.

You'll note that the entire outside of your palm in raised when you stretch your hand backward. That is what I use, but I'm not in the habit of stropping with my hand only. Given the gentleman Tony is referring to probably doesn't own a strop . . .

Tony, was this a straight?

Alan,
No he had a plain single edged razor blade he took out of a box cutter he was using. Stopped it briskly on the heel of his hand, snapped it back into the box cutter and it was good as new. Later in the day he was "sharpening" his bench knife on a piece of aluminum casting flashing. This comes out of the sann with a rough abrasive texture.
Pretty ingenious guy.

Tony

After honing a chisel, plane iron etc I always strop it on the palm of my hand and very briskly too. This was taught to me by an old Shipwright I trained under. I can not see why this could not work for a razor but I think the testing should be done by a more adventurous person than me :)

PuFF

on Saturday (the 5th) TMC ran a spaghetti western called "My Name is Nobody", the beginning and ending scenes were of someone getting a straight shave. In the opening sequence they show a close up of the "barber" (wasn't a real barber, but I won't spoil it for you) , stropping on his palm.