Thread: Dulling blades on a strop

A very experienced friend showed me that about 3/4" of sag is preferable to very taut. Does that agree with your experience?

As a relative newbie who just figured out how to strop correctly, this strop probably kept me from doing something stupid in my quest for even greater improvements. Nicely done.

No, I haven't found that to be true yet. I've been using a taut strop with a dab of pressure for years because that was the way I was taught. Lately I've been working on using no pressure (with more passes). I've been following the advice to use "only the pressure needed to attain draw", as in the barbers manuals.

I actually, just yesterday, dulled my edge slightly with very mild deflection, like 2 mm.

I'm pretty certain that there is a correlation between the strop, technique, pressure and deflection. In that many people can strop a little differently and get the best results.

I've been working on using just a feather light touch to see what I could accomplish and that has been doing well.

I haven't yet made any conclusions on what is the perfect amount of sag or that 3/4 is perfect. I haven't worked that amount of sag much but would think that would be a little too much. It is more than I've ever routinely used.

Anyone else want to chime in on this? I'd have to try it a bit to make any intelligent reply.

Originally Posted by Slant-Fan

A very experienced friend showed me that about 3/4" of sag is preferable to very taut. Does that agree with your experience?