Thread: Just Discovered Palm Stropping

Originally Posted by Razorfaust

i have experimented with palm stropping off and on through the years and honestly, I cant seem to detect any difference of improvement to the blade.

I still do it out of habit but I can't tell if it does anything or not. Never cut myself but it does require 100% focus.

I’ve been using palm stropping regularly for some weeks now. I do all my pre and post preparations in the truck before going to the shower at the truck stop. After shave as I’m cleaning and packing up I’ll palm strop 10-20 strokes for cleaning and drying purposes. Once back in the truck I’ll do all my post shave cleaning and stropping. Focus, yes; worried, no.

Only time I've palm stropped was tinkering with scraper blades at work. Used a set of Arkansas stones to make them sharper than they come from the factory. Then palm stropped the edge - mostly to see the look on my co-worker's face. It was priceless.

But straight razors at home? Nah. I paid good money for a strop so I could slip and cut it rather than myself. So far I've done a rather poor job of that. The only nick on my SRD strop is the one I put there intentionally when I unwrapped it to get that first one out of the way. Maybe my old neighbor's superstition was right and it really is good luck to put that first scratch on a new thing yourself right away?

I don't get the concerns about palm stropping. I don't like putting my razor under running water because I don't want it to be wet, so I always wipe my blade on the palm of my hand. Then I wipe my hand on a towel. I don't wipe the blade directly on the towel because the towel folds over and can dull the blade but my palm doesn't do that. Sometimes I palm strop between passes if I feel it'll help (I'm not actually sure it does).

Anyway, I'm no wonder of coordination -- not a great shot with a handgun, not a good dancer. Best I can say is I'm pretty good at working with hand tools. But I've never cut myself palm stropping. Just need to move the blade spine leading not edge leading is all, so it seems to me that anyone who can do that shouldn't be worried. It's a lot easier than shaving your face with a razor!