Thread: Question about stropping

Take an 18” piece of para cord or shoelace tie in a loop and loop through the strop clasp and on the doorknob, with the door open. That will put the strop at waist height.

It is not about how tight you hold the strop, it is the downward pressure that rolls an edge. Light pressure, go slow, stop before you flip, flip with your fingers not your wrist.

You may as well get some magnification and inspect your edges, a Carson Micro Brite is $10-15 with a lighted 60-100x power. There are many posts on magnification and what to look for. A 12k would not hurt either based on how your “collection” is growing…

Its twisting because your lifting or dropping your elbo, during the pass. Keep the elbo at the same height at all times.

You mentioned that you just had it engraved, that makes me question the health of your edge during that process...

Originally Posted by dinnermint

You mentioned that you just had it engraved, that makes me question the health of your edge during that process...

Hi, I should have been clearer.

I didn't get my blade engraved but the little silver piece on the scales and I made sure that the blade was kept closed at all times.

Steve

The vibrations from engraving could cause the edge to chip. Just guessing.

YMMV = Your Mileage May Very = it's possible it may be different for everyone.
Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by Gasman

The vibrations from engraving could cause the edge to chip. Just guessing.

YMMV = Your Mileage May Very = it's possible it may be different for everyone.
Hope that helps.

Hi Jerry,

I understand and was a little concerned so I gave it the q-tip test and it seems nice and smooth, didn't get any sharper though!

Steve

if you go way back on the forum there is a thread I did about a stropping test I performed. It's so long ago I forget the title but it's pretty long and drawn out. The conclusion was 60 strokes on leather is the sweet spot. Any more and you be exercising your arm and risk damaging the strop through a "false move".

Moved to Stropping Forum.

All due respect to previous posters. Don't let your leather sag like what is shown in the picture I posted. It makes the edge lean too much into the leather making it susceptible to rolling. What Marty said is true that it's not the taughtness of the letter that causes rolling but how much pressure is put on the edge. That being said it's a lot easier to put too much pressure on the edge when you have a saggy strop like that. Maybe better put, it is too hard to control how much pressure you are putting on each respective part of the blade, i.e. the spine versus the edge.
Not trying to be contradictory guys but that seems to be true from my experience.
Edit: Don't take my word for it. This is just my experience. I found it too hard to have good stropping technique without creating as flat a surface as possible. As Ray said do what works for you. I really believe this to be true though, especially if you are still developing your technique but ARMV: Actual Results May Vary.

How about just pretending to shave your strop with the spine of the blade. That should bring just enough pressure to both the spine and edge.

Bob