Why so many laps on the Strop?

I was on the killing floor in a large meat processing plant years ago(not for the faint of heart!). The cutters(I think that's what they were called). would pass the edge over the blade twice, once on each side of the blade, make a few cuts, and repeat the process. Why then is is necessary to repeat this process so many more times when alighning the fin on a str8 razor? In theory(only mine, of course) it would seem that if the edge and spine are flat and a few passes are made lightly, why are more needed?

Steve Boyd

Fanaticism.

Why so many laps on the Strop?

Seems like the multiple strop guys might be just splitting hairs

It feels manly to strop.. LOL

We do many more passes before we start but the meat cutters do less passes far more often. I would uspect that if they used a single blade all day without stropping by the next day they would need 20-30 passes to get the edge back in line. By stropping every few cuts their edge never really "moves" much in between the more frequent stroppings. If were were to take 2 or 3 passes at our whiskers, strop a few passes, take a few more shaving passes, strop again, etc.... we would get the same effect as stropping 20 times once a day.

Beside, we simply like to play with our toys <g>

Tony

For what it's worth, i worked as a meatcutter last summer and i'd just chime in that a cutter NEEDS to strop every few cuts (is it still called stropping when they use a sharpening steel rod?) there edge is far from perfect...it's just sharp enough to do a few cuts...and they could care less. theres no point in doing many laps up the steel...2 laps, 30 laps, that damn blade will be just as dull after a few cuts anyways. takes way too much time and then you go and hit a bone when you're de-boning a pork leg...waste of effort. we always carried 2 knifes for quick changes, a steel rod for quick touches and a sharpener for when the rod starts to lose it's effect. we also have guy that walks around and sharpens the spare knife for you so you don't have to waste your time doing it.

as a straight razor shaver, you don't want to just be able to JUST cut the hair, you want to do it cleanly. thats not a concern for meatcutters. what they need sharp to be is worlds away from what we need sharp to be

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Originally Posted by Tony Miller

I would uspect that if they used a single blade all day without stropping by the next day they would need 20-30 passes to get the edge back in line.

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yikes! if they used a single blade all day they would have carpal tunnel for sure! after even 20 minutes without stropping you're not even cutting meat anymore, you're forcing your way through it. as a meat cutter i wouldn't even bother stropping the knife, i'd just go right to my sharpener.

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Originally Posted by zepplin

why are more needed?

Steve Boyd

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They are not needed

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Originally Posted by Tony Miller

Beside, we simply like to play with our toys <g>

Tony

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Here here! I'm all for playing with yourself....what? What did I say?

:confused::confused::confused:

i don't know about the extra stropping not being necessary...i'll agree that i don't notice a difference between stropping 20 times and stropping 60 times, but i seem to recall an experiment someone did in which they compared stropping 30 times before a shave, stropping 30 before and 30 after, and stropping 60 before and it seemed the razors stropped with the higher amount retained a sharper edge longer.

better safe than sorry, that's the way i see it

10 gets the job done just fine . . .10 before and 10 after might be even better.

which one is more, 30 before and 30 after, or 60 before?

Think about it.

Perhaps your conclusions are missing the point.

"Most razors are spoiled by too much stropping" (Maher and Grosh, 1922)

Experiment, did someone say experiment? yes that was me and as far as I'm concerned 60x provided the best result. Many have challenged the result of that experiment but no one has taken the challenge to repeat it? why not?

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Originally Posted by AFDavis11

10 gets the job done just fine . . .10 before and 10 after might be even better.

which one is more, 30 before and 30 after, or 60 before?

Think about it.

Perhaps your conclusions are missing the point.

"Most razors are spoiled by too much stropping" (Maher and Grosh, 1922)

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oh no i agree with you, a person can use minimal stropping and still get the edge they desire

when i think about it 30 before and 30 after is really just 60 before (30 strokes followed by 30 more a few hours later)

i'm not saying increased stropping is necessary to get the shaving edge, practical experience has proven this to me, but perhaps there is the possibility that increased stropping provides a benefit not immediately seen (assuming you don't mess up your edge in the process). maybe you can get an extra shave or two, who knows?

no one can really prove definitively one way or the other. there are too many variables

i personally don't know why increased stropping would make a difference (i mean once an edge is straight it can't get it any straighter) or why it might affect the life of a razor, but people have had experiences that beg the question.

so i remain at, you don't need to, but it MIGHT be a good idea...

I'm certain 150 before and 150 after would really make a big difference! :)

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Experiment, did someone say experiment? yes that was me and as far as I'm concerned 60x provided the best result. Many have challenged the result of that experiment but no one has taken the challenge to repeat it? why not?

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Many people get better results without even experimenting, and a few of us remember how much pain you went through.

Don't forget also that the knifes used for meat are much coarser than a razor. And the steels are more aggressive than the strop. I worked in a butcher and witnessed the same thing. Every few minutes they would give a few strokes on the steel. When the knife hits a bone of cartilage it dulls slightly, but the edge I think only needs a quick polish to bring it back. If we used a steel on a razor i guess that it would act much faster than a strop, just not so fine.
This is just what I heard at the butcher, so it don't blame me if it is rubbish!

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Originally Posted by edk442

when i think about it 30 before and 30 after is really just 60 before (30 strokes followed by 30 more a few hours later)

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That's right if you ignore 'time'. However, many people strop after as part of a drying procedure. Which means the 30 after is definitely 'after' and not just a super-early 'before', if you catch my drift. (I.e. the 'after' having a different purpose to the 'before'.)

Others here have also argued that stropping more than 30 minutes before shaving will have a less beneficial effect. If there is truth in this then, again, 30 'after' and 30 'before' cannot count as 60 'before' since there's going to be at least 24 hours between each set of 30, which means the effect of the 30 'after' is negated by the time you start the 30 'before'.

OK, I'm stopping now because if I let the pedant in me continue typing, who knows what I'll end up saying! :shrug:

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Originally Posted by majurey

That's right if you ignore 'time'. However, many people strop after as part of a drying procedure. Which means the 30 after is definitely 'after' and not just a super-early 'before', if you catch my drift. (I.e. the 'after' having a different purpose to the 'before'.)

Others here have also argued that stropping more than 30 minutes before shaving will have a less beneficial effect. If there is truth in this then, again, 30 'after' and 30 'before' cannot count as 60 'before' since there's going to be at least 24 hours between each set of 30, which means the effect of the 30 'after' is negated by the time you start the 30 'before'.

OK, I'm stopping now because if I let the pedant in me continue typing, who knows what I'll end up saying! :shrug:

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Wow, I think my head just exploded...:gth

I know I am chiming in very late, but proven results must stand as correct until new testing proves otherwise. 60 before or 30 pre/post shave laps seem to have produced the best results. The results are posted, and I have no evidence to prove them wrong.
Of course, there is the always the fact that stropping is only a chore for those not used to it. For the first year or so, I counted down laps, and couldn't wait to reach 0. Now, I just strop until I feel my lather starts drying up a tad. I re-lather and shave. Works like a charm!
Another point is that different razors need more/less passes than others.
Stropping a razor is how I "get the feel" of my razor before using it. Like stretching before a workout, or a jog.

My belief is that stropping on leather aligns the teeth on the fins. The more you do, the more likely you have aligned all the teeth and that they will stay where they are put - I think of it like brushing hair (not that I would know I dont have any hair lol)

Running a knife up a steel removes the burr that happens when you are doing heavy duty cutting. If you hit a bone or are cutting through very thick substances (meat for example), and even getting through to the chopping board underneath, will all cause the cutting edge to fold over and cause a burr. This needs to be removed aggressively revealing a new sharp (though not sharp by our standards of course) edge. You can only do this a handful of times before you need to resharpen though - hence your little sharpening man.

I may be horribly confused about what Stropping is and what a Steel is used for though - I am no expert - but the two actions are not the same at all in my book.

Si

I remember a conversation with a meat cutter years ago where he told me that the ideal edge characteristics were different for cutting beef and pork. If I remember, the beef edge was to be smoother and the pork edge needed to have bigger teeth and this was created by the steel used: the beef steel was smooth and the pork steel had been sanded to give it some tooth.

Perhaps this is somewhat germaine in that different types of beards may need different types of edge grooming for the best shave. I dunno; I'm still trying to figure out how to attempt a good hone. Stropping seemed to be pretty straight forward except when I read the recent comment about being able to "get the feel" of the razor by stropping. I for one can't discern any difference in feel on the leather from beginning of stropping to end of stropping.

the more I read, the less I know --Bruce

You can feel the edge as it develops on many types of strops. I'll say again, its the quality of the stropping that counts not the number of passes.

Remember that:

Only one razor was assigned to each bin in the experiment allowing for a great variation in our own personal stropping experience comparatively, remember Bigspendur was an expert shaver even back when he did this experiment, probably one of the best shavers on the planet. I, on the other hand, could easily add a variation to a control razor quite accidentally (and likely others could too). I would have wanted a few razors in each bin to account for other issues in technique.

Two, the results are factors comparatively, they can make judgements about the time between honings for each of the tested factors. You can not, as easily, jump on the "more is better" bandwagon or think that you can account for every other option that is possible.

I find that stropping on a varying scale starting at fewer and adding the number of strokes as needed achieves approximately twice the time (3 months) between honings that the original experiment did. I start with about 5 strokes and work through 10- 15 - 20- until I'm doing as many as 40 strokes total, but again I really don't pay too much attention to the number, only the results of the draw.

So can we say that varying the stroke count and considering wear on the strop is better? I can, because I've compared it to other options, but I still can't say that this is the only/best way to strop to attain extended time between honings. I can only say I think its better compared to other methods I've tried (with emphasis on "I've", others might need to strop 60 just to get a good edge for the first shave).

We still have members that claim they can go a year between honings, now that is a feat in my book. Still it leaves plenty of room for other options besides 30 before, 30 before and 30 after, and 60 before.

What about 20 before and 20 after? What about 28 before? What if 28 before (instead of 30 before) goes out one day longer than what 30 before does? What about 2 on linen and 30 on leather? Or, how about 40 on leather? Huh oh . . . we haven't even talked about linen.

I'm not even clear how you can decide that more is better based on these control bins? If more is better, then 1500 before and 1500 after would give you a razor that lasts forever right?

Should we try that? I think I'd end up with a dull razor myself. You guys must think you'd need to rehone in 2009. Makes you wonder huh? I suppose I need to try that huh?

I thought the point of the original experiment was to determine if before and after helped extend honing.

From the original thread:

"So, what can we conclude here in the postmortem? Well, first stroping 60x is better than 30x. I think that has been proven. Second, the difference between stroping 30x before and 30x after shaving is really no different than stroping 60x before."

and:

"I'm toying with the idea of taking the two SRPs and just stroping one 60x and the other 100x and seeing what happens"

. . . and that never happened. But if it had, we'd know if 100 was better or 60 was better. We'd still not know if more is better.

I think at some point, more is not better. Given the original experiment, in which I should remind you that razors were dropped when they became uncomfortable, not for a loss of sharpness, it was decided that 60 was better than 30. Thats all you can conclude. You can't assess what 40 would do. Heck I get three decent shaves before I even start stropping and 15 is a breeze.