Thread: Stropping Speed

Speed has nothing to do with the final result. Its the technique thats important. I remember in the old days when I was a kid and went to the barber and they still gave straight shaves the barber would slap that strop with the razor and go a mile a minute. Kind of like the show you get from the chef at a Japanese restaurant.

Your example sort of sounds like it backs the speed theory. I've had good results with slapping and high speed stropping.

Are you saying that a "mile a minute" is slow or that your own experience indicates that slow is just fine too?

I just want to clarify because all barbers I've seen stropped very fast.

I thought Bigspendur meant that they went fast, but maybe I'm wrong.

I've been thinking about it a bit more and I'm not sure we're talking about temper-ruining heat, even with the fastest stropping. I've heard you can do some damage with a Dremel if you're not careful, but I'm pretty sure no-one is stropping at 3000rpm (or whatever). I'm thinking more along the lines of "running the blade under the hot tap" type heat

Surely realigning the edge must be helped by friction heat.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I'm thinking more along the lines of "running the blade under the hot tap" type heat

Surely realigning the edge must be helped by friction heat.

James.

Interesting, this reminds me of the old trick of heating a stubborn metal jar lid in hot water to expand the metal lid and thus making opening the jar easier.

I can see how inducing heat via contact friction on the strop could slightly expand the edge of a razor during tooth alignment and then when it cools/contracts the edge/teeth would be more compressed/tighter as opposed to cold/slow stropping.

Just my 2 cents.

We talked a little about this yesterday in Brisbane and i still dont have a good answer... i really dont know.

One thing that has occured to me is that when you are stopping the draw or feel of the leather changes and i am guessing that could have something to do with the feather flattening out and the leather warming up a little.

As leather, and other stuff, gets warmer on its surface the oils within it are drawn to the heat and the surface becomes more supple and grippy

(grippy is a wonderful sherwen-ism for fans of tour de france racing)

I would think that the faster you strop the less chance the leather has to cool down between passes and the more draw is developed...

This is all a bit of a guess though... Im still no closer to an educated answer than I was yesterday... any of that stike a chord though?

Greg Frazer