Quote Originally Posted by Chris L View Post
I was going to say the exact same thing that Puff did here. It's those imperceptible forward jerks at the end of a stroke which leads me to.........



.......having the same question; do you lift the spine of the razor off the strop at ANY point during your stropping sessions? Keeping the spine in contact with the strop at ALL times during the stropping procedure has reduced nicking my strops down to a few times per year.

Chris L
I did this a bunch of times while learning to strop. I never lifted the spine. What happens is that you reach the end of a stroke and there's a little "back lash". It's tough to start to lift the edge before stopping completely in order to reverse direction. So you stop, then there's a slight reverse direction like when you stop a car and it rocks back slightly, then you lift the edge to roll it on the spine -- too late, there's a slight nick or catch.

What I finally found to completely eliminate this was to shorten the stroke. Initially I seemed to want to use almost the full length of the stropping surface. I think the slight reverse was a result of approaching the end of the strop and making a concious effort to stop. I now sort of stop on the middle 2/3's of the stropping area. It actually turns out that I go further than that but there is a very gradual stop to reverse direction and no more recoil.