Thread: How many strokes to strop a razor?

Sometimes we don't explain the basics very well.

I just thought I would share my experience in using a strop.

Firstly, I think that stropping is probably more important than honing and we don't say that frequently enough.

My regular strop is a horse hide strop from Hand American. It is 3" wide and 28" long. It has no handle but a half stroke on the leather is a minimum of 24".

My razors after a shave do not have a "sticky" edge. After a successful stropping and before a shave, they do.

We all know about light strokes and holding the strop taught, but how many strokes does it take to get that sticky edge?

Well for me, it takes a minimum of fifty return strokes. I have found that speed does matter. If the blade moves quickly over the leather, I am sure the edge warms up and smooths out better. I'm not being scientific but just making an observation. If my strop was shorter, it would make little difference but I would need to increase the number of strokes.

I know when I have got things just right, because I see the nap on the leather changes shade as the blade flashes across it. Watching the leather nap is like watching the water movement as you hone a blade.

Does anybody else have some useful pointers or advice to share.

I have one of Tony;s linen/horse/latigo 2 1/2 wide strops and I do 50 on the linen 25 on the latigo and 25 on the horse pre-shave. Following the shave I do another dozen round trips on the horse. I'm not being scientific either. I read this post and began to use the routine above and it seems to work very well for me. Nine out of ten times a razor I strop this way will pass HHT after stropping.....if it is sharp enough to begin with.

I have no idea... on the instructions to Tony's beauty it says how to strop but not for how long. I do 20 laps on the linen, 20 on the latigo and 20 on the horsehide. Is that good?

I usually do at least 10 laps on the linen and follow up with AT LEAST 25 laps on the latigo-usually 40-50 though.The QUALITY of the strop is very important too. With a Tony Miller strop-there are no worries and provided your technique is good,and you don't "roll" an edge-more laps can't hurt. At least IMO.

20 on the cotton/linen followed by 30-50 on the leather (using a TM 3")

60 laps on the leather. Don't use the linen side...

Two fiddy six, yeahhhhh, two fiddy six.........

I'm a very good stropper............yeahhhhhhhh



Lynn

I have to totally 100% agree with the "English" on this one
We do under emphasize the importance of good pre-shave stropping...
Me I am a 25 linen and 50 leather before the shave kinda guy and 20 leather between passes (probably not necessary) that is gets me to the feel that I want on the razor...

Great Thread !!!!

Lynn - I bet you are an excellent driver!

Seriously though, I don't use linen at the moment, just one of the leather strops I make myself. Number of strokes? Depends, if I have just conditioned the strop with neatsfoot oil the draw increases and I use less strokes. On average its somewhere between 50 and 75 round laps.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by English

I'm not being scientific but just making an observation.

The two are inseparably connected. Your scientific process may only include making an observation, but that in itself is part of science.

That's like trying to take the peanut butter out of a PBJ and still have a PBJ.

OR WORSE!!! Taking the B out of a BLT.... yuck... who wants an LT sandwich? not me.