Thread: Some thoughts on stropping

The more I think about it the idea of thumbnail testing to increase the time between honings is probably pretty silly, yet I'll continue with a short experiment.

I think the Bigspender's experiment tested 3 hypotheses of honing interval. What I intend to do is add a new variable. So, not 30, not 30 before and 30 after, and not 60 before, but adding a thumbnail test. So that should be a whole seperate test, and I'll do whatever stropping I sense is right at the time. I.E. strop until I feel a draw and then stop, or at some point strop way beyond that point and see if extra stropping can lead to dulling and whether it can be fixed with this method.

Today I ran the blade over my nail 4 times and stropped only 5 passes to bias the experiment a little against my hypothesis. The shave was ok, maybe a 6 out of 10. This week I'll only strop about 10 times each day and then see if I ever get to a point where I feel I've overstroped and try and fix it with a thumbnail test.

I may be able to simply overstrop or roll an edge and simply try fixing it a few times with the thumbnail. At this point that option makes more sense. I can try that with other razors as I go. I'm not sure I actually know how to roll an edge or just feather it with too much stropping.

I get the feeling I can feather out the edge with stropping and unfeather it with the thumbnail. I think the optimum is a balance between the two and perhaps that sits around 30-60 passes? Probably with light pressure?

This morning I also tried another razor and a slack strop and that did not work out well at all. Enough of that idea already.

I also think I will stop using the term experiment, as this will likely be too unscientific and I have no one to convince but myself.

I'm feelin' pretty good this friday night, so I'm just gonna say –

Alan you rock. You're a freakin' scientist. We all benefit from your endless crazy experiments.

I'm still using your strop-on-ashed-linen thing –

and I've been shaving monogamously with the same damn monserrat razor for two months straight and haven't had to hone it yet. The thing seems to get better and better.

I know that's nothing for honedright and a few other guys, but for a guy that never got more than 7 shaves out of a razor before I call it results.

Happy weekend.

The idea behind the Grand Experiment was a practical thing to see if more stropping allowed the razor the go longer between honing. Its as simple as that. There are many variables which can affect the result so the scientific method is not applicable to this kind of thing. It was just taking three razors, two identical in brand and model and a third as close as I could get, same brand and based upon recommendations by members set the standards as to the number of strokes and the before and after stropping. I've often times said that someone else should duplicate the experiment but there have been no takers.

I would be careful about using draw as any indicator because some strops have none and it can vary even with the same strop between razors based on the grind and size and whether the strop was last dressed and I'm not sure the temperature and humidity affects it or not. Just a thought.

Originally Posted by dylandog

I'm feelin' pretty good this friday night, so I'm just gonna say –

Alan you rock. You're a freakin' scientist. We all benefit from your endless crazy experiments.

I'm still using your strop-on-ashed-linen thing –

and I've been shaving monogamously with the same damn monserrat razor for two months straight and haven't had to hone it yet. The thing seems to get better and better.

I know that's nothing for honedright and a few other guys, but for a guy that never got more than 7 shaves out of a razor before I call it results.

Happy weekend.

I'll second the kudos. It's just fun and inspiring to 'listen' to Allan, Scott and TheBigSpendur kick this stuff around. Like dylandog, I'm reaping the benefits of your years of experience. Plus, this is driving me back to my barber manual, past posts and reminding myself to try to take my technique up a traditional notch or two. Fun stuff. Thanks Gents.

- Dale

Bigspendur- Excellent points!

I'm a little in a hurry so I'll have to come back and re-read and think about this stuff a little more but this morning proved some pretty dramatic results

I shaved again this morning, and the results were dramatically poor. The edge deterioration was pretty noticible. This shave rated around a 2 out of 10. Some thoughts I came across as I worked with the materials I had available.

The edge, once damaged via excessive stropping, was corrected with one, and only one pass on a wetted thumbnail. Four passes caused irreversible damage and one pass on a dry nail also caused irrepairable damage (nothing I could do with a strop helped).

The blade was shaveable, but was left feeling very poor in quality, kinda like it would if you were new to honing and thought you had it down already.

I felt forced to hone it to return it to its pristine glory.

I have concluded already, that it is possible to overstrop. I have also concluded that it is impossible to determine where this is as several different dressing compounds and strops all behaved differently. And to add to BigSpendurs comment I also found that it may in deed be possible to have too much draw on a strop, causing edge damage from fewer strokes.

Re-reviewing the post from Scott which was so instrumental in helping me with all this it does in fact say in the last paragraph . . .

"most razors are spoiled by too much stropping".

So I think most of this playing around merely confirmed what you other guys already knew. For me, I did pick up a litte new info.

I'll repost the link just for any readers ease in finding it. Click on the 1922 link:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/compo...d,19/Itemid,3/

I will likely continue to play around a little with this idea.

Originally Posted by dylandog

I'm feelin' pretty good this friday night, so I'm just gonna say –

Alan you rock. You're a freakin' scientist. We all benefit from your endless crazy experiments.

I'm still using your strop-on-ashed-linen thing –

and I've been shaving monogamously with the same damn monserrat razor for two months straight and haven't had to hone it yet. The thing seems to get better and better.

I know that's nothing for honedright and a few other guys, but for a guy that never got more than 7 shaves out of a razor before I call it results.

Happy weekend.

Thanx! you are in a good mood! That is really cool. Stay tuned, as soon I'm thinking about posting "Some thoughts on honing" . . .

Neat stuff. Nothing envigorates an old field like challenging the preconceived "wisdom" and running your own tests.