Thread: Strop Width, X Pattern and Hot Dog Buns

Originally Posted by honedright

James, I really need to make another video. In the current one, it's hard to see exactly what is going on, even for me. I'll need to slow down the stroke and shoot from a different angle to make it easier to see.

Scott

That's no problem Scott - I've done a bit of searching as well and realise that you start with the tip leading, is that right? But you still X pattern in the usual way on the strop? Anyway, I really like your video - the right hand of fury!! Not to mention the fingers - I'm pretty sure my poor fingers will never be able to flip a razor that quickly or with that amount of accuracy.

Anyway, I've been doing some more visualisation with the help of crayons, of course I think the only way to get the stropping pattern exactly matching the honing pattern is if the X went the opposite way, even with the tip leading. I'm not completely sure about that, but so far the only way I've been able to get the striations parallel is by doing the \ part of the X on the "away from me" stroke and the / part of the X on the "toward me" stroke (tip leading). This makes sense to me because it exactly matches, but in reverse, the stroke used on the hone for that side of the edge.

That is, if you strop in the \ direction away from you (tip leading) and stop at the end (leave the razor on the strop unflipped), you've just traced the exact path (but in reverse) of a heel leading hone stroke for that side of the edge, thus giving parallel striations. Does that make sense, or am I going crazy again? (must update my meds....).

James.

Yes, James, you've almost got it. Now just imagine a "scything" sort of motion as the razor travels (of course with the back of the razor leading). The point starts at the top edge of the strop and curves down and across ending near the bottom edge, just further up, or down, the strop. It is an X where the two strokes meet in the middle, but an X with elongated and slightly curving arms. If that makes any sense.

Scott

Originally Posted by honedright

It is an X where the two strokes meet in the middle, but an X with elongated and slightly curving arms.

So, if your stroke is curved, isn't there some point where you are no longer stropping parallel the striations on the edge?

I mean if the goal is to reproduce the motion of honing and thus maximize the stropping effectiveness, you would have to exactly reproduce the straight, angled stroke. Correct?

Otherwise you have the same scenario as with any other stropping method, the scratches sliding around on the leather.

Originally Posted by honedright

If my razor edge looked just like the ones in the current photos, I would happily concede that there is somthing else going on.

The problem is that it has been shown that leather doesn't abrade the steel to any significant degree (even on the microscopic scale), the only thing that stropping does is "push" the irregularities along the edge back into a line. So while it would be very informative for all of us to have an electron microscope at our disposal, there is unlikely to be anything astoundingly different from what is in the Verhoeven study.

I mean, if there's no abrasion going on, then the edge can only be aligned so much before there is nothing left to fix about it and any method is as good as any other and there is some other cause of your edges lasting so much longer.