Thread: Stropping Speed

i like Greg's reasoning. I run my hand along the strop a few times before stropping to warm it up. Same idea

Yes, that makes sense to me. Sounds like the general feeling is that speed is not in and of itself important in terms of producing heat - *if* heat is an issue, high speed stropping is no more effective than lower speeds. Most important thing is technique. Does that sound fair?

James.

I would fall into the speed doesn't matter one whit category. There are days when my razor just seems to fly over the strop and other days when my five thumbs can't seem to hold on to the thing. It doesn't seem to matter in my shave though. I can have a good shave on a slow stropping day or a fast one it really doesn't matter.

My point was that the barbers did the speed thing for two reasons. #1 time is money and it saved time and #2 it was like a show. From my own experience speed means nothing. Of course I always use the linen first and that supposedly warms up the edge before it hits the leather. If you don't use the linen and apply the cold edge to the leather certainly very slow stropping won't build much heat.

But have we ever even determined that a warm edge strops better than a cold one?

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

My point was that the barbers did the speed thing for two reasons. #1 time is money and it saved time and #2 it was like a show. From my own experience speed means nothing. Of course I always use the linen first and that supposedly warms up the edge before it hits the leather. If you don't use the linen and apply the cold edge to the leather certainly very slow stropping won't build much heat.

But have we ever even determined that a warm edge strops better than a cold one?

No, we haven't, I don't think. And that's the crux of my original question, now that I think about it.

When I was at Trumpers the salesman suggested that years ago, before hot water was as easily available, linen-or canvas-sided strops were necessary to develop some heat on the blade before leather stropping. He didn't elaborate more than that.

Now, I don't know what expertise he has in the area of strops and straights, especially given the abundance of DEs and Mach 3 handles Trumpers sells, but I thought about it - he definitely wasn't trying to sell me anything, as I'd already bought a B-L off him. It made me wonder though.

I think it's safe to assume heat is generated by stropping. Not a tonne, but some. The edge is the finest part on the blade, and if you are stropping properly it is in complete contact with the leather. I have no evidence to back it up, but my gut feeling is that the friction heat makes the edge more malleable, if that's the word, and enables better physical alignment of the edge than if it was cold. Of course, it's slightly redundant because rubbing the blade on anything is going to create heat to some extent.

But I'm no metal smith ...

James.

I think its important though to remain objective.

First we have every example of stropping so far, including our own practice; done with speed.

Second, from from the Standard Practice of Barbering we have "Bear just heavy enough to attain a draw, rapid speed is necessary and this will come to you as you practice" (p. 76)

The rest of this business about heat seems to come right out of a text book example of how not to conduct analysis, a pure logic flaw.

We think we have heat and we think we have a thin metal that might be influenced by heat, therefore it is heat that is stropping the edge.

The leather is also sticky and the edge is also thin.

Now I strop using high speed, I think it might be important, and when I strop I can touch the edge and it feels warm, again I don't know that that means that heat is doing all, or some of the work.

But I'm a little confused, how we can say heat is an issue but speed is not?

Does anyone actually believe that you could strop just as effectively if you stropped reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyy slowly, like one minute per stroke? And if you believe that then doesn't that mean that, its just as likely, that both heat and tension are aligning the edge?

I strop with speed and think it may be important but only from the fact that a text book says it is, but again I've never picked up on a difference (which doesn't mean much. I've never looked for a difference). I'm sure others remain unswayed by a textbook. But then we have everyone in the community doing it fast too.

To me, if we all agree that stropping slowly works just as well (and I'm not agreeing with this one yet) then I think its not just heat that is doing the stropping action.

If heat is a factor I would think that all of us would say that speed is important too.

What prevents both heat and tension working together? Or if heat is a component of stropping wouldn't the textbook be right about speed?

I guess my mind is having a hard time wrapping around the idea that it is either tension or heat or both that is stropping the edge, yet, we are also certain that speed is not an issue.

Let me ask this question, since I strop with a heavy hand and very high speed; could this be the reason everyone else thinks I'm nuts stropping only 10 strokes when others swear by 50?

I am of the opinion that fast is best when stropping, BUT..slower and more considered stropping will achieve a good result. Going slow to the point of boiling a kettle and rolling a smoke between strokes would possible do some good but I would not be surprised if it did b****lox.

Heat generation can not be avoided when stropping at the 'correct speed' and perhaps this is why you say the text books say to strop fast. Are these texts teaching the "practice" of shaving or the science, I'm inclined to the former. Surely there would be no need to understand the science underlying stropping when all you would need to teach stropping is HOW. Many trades where taught by the old/skilled craftsman teaching his apprentice what he knew. Would they have seen the benefit in going into the science of there skill with this young hopeful when the "do as I do" approach would have passed on the necessary skills needed.
I am a proponent of stropping on the linen and feel this step in the overall process is justified not only on results but also by history. This may be locality dependent, as I notice a lot of old strops from the US don't have linen where most from Europe do. Old US strops tend to have the 2 grades of leather (coarse/finish) which obviously works and mimics the leather/linen style. I have some strops with the duel leather setup and find it as good, when the coarse leather is "coarse".
I am unsure on the science of how it all works but common sense and experience tells me that a good pace over the linen followed by the same over the leather produces the best results, and yes, I don't agree with linen straight after a fresh honing but only leather first.

PuFF

Well rather then jawing about this why doesn't someone do an experiment. This is easy. You just need one razor. A week of stropping say on plain leather really slow at say one stroke every 5 secconds, then another week every second then a week at two strokes a second and then throw in the linen another week for good measure. If you had one of those infrared heat detectors you could even measure the surface of the edge to see what was going on.

Well, I'm happy to volunteer for stropping duty, though I don't have an infrared detector or a linen/canvas-sided strop. It might be good also if other people could also do the same so we can have some cross-validation. But regardless, I'll try it out.

Same razor each time for the next few weeks. As BigSpendur suggests (week 1 slow, week 2 a bit quicker etc...). Same number of strokes each time (say 30).

James.

That sounds good. Since the razor won't be honed in between it should be easily to validate if speed improves the edge.

I'll try the same thing myself. I think I left my IR heat detector in Iraq though.

I'm still interested in whether heat supports any of the stropping action.