Thread: Some thoughts on stropping

I believe stropping is pretty easy, but like honing, I can't see whats going on. I think the idea is to apply a little bit of pressure to align the edge and build out the fin slightly to create two smooth bevel sides and an extended fin with which to shave.

If you imagine pulling a rope through water that would be like stropping a blade initially, thus no draw. If you imagine a ball tied to the same rope being pulled through water you'd get draw or pull on the rope. I think this is similar to what we get after some stropping. The fin is created a little on both sides and perhaps creates a similar "ball" on the edge, thus heavy draw.

Now, if you can imagine developing that fin, or extension and you either:

fail to allow the blade to pivot in your hand correctly while stropping, or go down too far on the strop with thumb pressure (or finger pressure), the fin will easily snap off.

You can easily imagine this if you know there is a fin extended out from your edge. Maybe this is why they say in barbers manuals you should hold the razor like a pencil your turning, it wouldn't be as likely to apply too much pressure while turning it.

And you can also see why its important to lessen the pressure as you go and to use a light touch at the end.

So I think the fin breaking is occuring typically not from too much pressure but from too much pressure, applied too far down the strop where the torque is being built up, which might explain why some videos show a slap straight down, a push off, and then lifting the blade off the strop instead of going the full length of the strop.

Perhaps also you can imagine how even light pressure would build up against the razors edge the further you push the razor down the strop and away from you body. This would, in some cases, cause the razors edge to break or roll, especially if you've built out your fin with previous stropping and fail to allow the razor to pivot in your fingers as you go.

Thoughts?

Interesting. Up or down the strop - pressure is pressure, it can be measured (its force, direction, application). Where one applies most pressure - I don't know, may be personal, or may be dependent on many many other things.

My take on this is that I have seen a broken fin (from overhoning) once or twice. That's it. This was a severe case, probably came to me through ebay.

The fin you are describing - what would be necessafy magnification power to see it?

Specifically speaking - i am used to thinking about a fin as one whole, and razors actually show little separate teetch, under the proper magnification... So I conceptualize stropping as simply aligning the teeth. Surely, with pressure some / many / all of them can break - but I have not seen this as I don't have the proper magnification.

Cheers
Ivo

Something interesting I remember reading in one of the shaving threads. It was from one of the manuals in the "Help" section on honing. It mentioned doing the thumb nail test after honing, not only to check the edge, but also to remove the "feather" edge produced by honing.

My understanding is that some of the members here avoid the thumb nail test after honing at higher finishing grits. This leads me to think, based on what I mentioned above, that those blades may still have that "feather" edge remaining. Could it be that this is what's prone to breaking off during stropping?

Just a thought.

Scott

Interesting concept, Allan. Like you, I've tried to visualize I can't see, by weighing the evidence I can see and feel. As I have pondered what stropping does and does not do (in an effort to do it better, not just for the Zen-like quality of the ponderings ) it strikes me that whatever it does, it must be a delicate thing since this same steel that we are trying so hard to bring to a keen edge looses that edge in minutes to warm, soggy, moist hairs and slippery soft skin. Based on that and the testimonials of many to the longevity of blades living on a primary diet of strops, it seems plausible that stropping is forming the edge by rearranging the steel more than removing it. All of this to say..."yeah, allan...makes sense to me" . And so does your comment about the thumb nail test, Scott.

- Dale

I'm very intrigued by Scott's comment about the thumbnail test. I'm going to have to give that a try and see what happens. My face will probably hate me for it...

Josh

Originally Posted by JoshEarl

I'm very intrigued by Scott's comment about the thumbnail test. I'm going to have to give that a try and see what happens. My face will probably hate me for it...

Josh

Just remember, when your face is hating you, I got that from here:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/compo...id,4/Itemid,3/



Scott

Scott,

I wouldn't blame you, anyway--my face is mighty particular. It hates me about half the time. Actually, that's why I'm thinking I would be good for this experiment. I'm very prone to irritation, so I should be able to detect any problems resulting from the thumbnail test...

Josh

I suspect the admonition against testing honed razors on the thumbnail may have come from the '61 textbook. Checking back with it I see it recommends against testing a stropped razor on the thumbnail, which probably only means you'll need to re-strop it after the test.

Well I'm not sure what it means but I can conduct the thumbnail test and see no reduction in draw, so I may very effectively be disproving my own theory (which is ok). But, I'm not sure that the bevel smoothness alone is the cause of draw and I'm not sure that a simple edge would roll under pressure.

I did note in the reference provided by Scott that it discusses the importance of not stropping too much, something I was not cognitive of. Wouldn't it be interesting if we were not rolling an edge at all with excessive stropping, but merely over smoothing the edge. Well, there is a long shot huh?

Perhaps extra pressure is just breaking the edge somewhat?

OK, I just conducted some initial shave tests. It does appear that running the blade on the thumbnail test after high grit and too heavy stropping does in fact improve the edge. Additionally, it may be that overstropping is not a rolling of the edge at all, but more a creation of a fin that feathers out. I was able to recreate this twice, with reduced shaving efficiency and there is no visible rolling of the edge at all. You can actually feel the feathering effect and you can also sense that it would feel "duller".

It may be possible that this "test" could be used to fix a "rolled" edge which in fact may not be a rolled edge at all and might explain why its so easy to do for newbies.

This would also explain the light stropping effect/success many members have. The combination of high grit and pressure (I only go out to 8k typically) may be compounding errors.

Well atleast I may have learned something very important here.

The pre-shave stropping on the thumbnail corrected edges was no more that a few strokes on linen (2-3) and a few strokes (4-5) on leather

It seems it may be very important not to overstrop.

More testing I suppose . . .