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Came across a boker instruction sheet. Stated to only strop the razor five or six strokes pre and post shave. Seems most people do more and so did i. Tried this on a boker and a cmon and they seem to be holding an edge sharper than my previous routine. Anyone else do this or notice differences.
The opposite happened to me. I increased the number of strokes over my previous routine and got an improvement.
Stropping if done improperly can dull an edge
Bob
I’m a compulsive stropper and go for the high count. I have for some time. Early on I noticed that a fresh hone edge was perfect after three or so shaves. I figure it was the accumulation of all that stropping. The next time I got a razor back, I went right to 100 strokes right off the bat and it was perfect. That has been my routine ever since.
If your increased stropping dulled the edge more than just a few laps then your stropping sucks. Just an honest statement. If your stropping right you can’t degrade the edge.
If you strop on a paddle strop, you can make the edge sharper if done properly. Due to the flexibility of a hanging strop, you round off the apex slightly making the edge less sharp, but more smooth. Each of us has our own criteria for the combination of sharpness and smoothness we want in our shaves, so you have to find out what stropping routine works best for you and your razors.
I did an experiment where I did 1000 laps on different strops from heavy to light draw on a razor.
Conclusion: A high stropping count does not degrade an edge, only bad stropping does.
It has always been just a recommendation to start at about 25 Linen and 50 Leather before the shave and 10 Linen after to clean the edge. After you get the stropping routine down then you start experimenting with higher and lower counts..
There are tons of Instruction Sheets out there with the razors, in fact a major Razor Company right now actually recommends not stropping for 2 weeks, everyone has ideas, SRP normally recommends a proven starting point, after that your experience directs what works for you
In my personal experience, you can't strop too much on plain leather. Also, a few strokes on a fabric strop definitely helps.
For me, with a good razor it goes something like this:
25 strokes on leather - better than nothing but not great
50 strokes on leather - ok for shaving
"gosh how long have I been standing here stropping?" (more than 100) - the razor feels like it purrs as the whiskers come off effortlessly.