Thread: Stropping one direction at a time

I'm a newbie at stropping and straight shaving in general.

While learining the technique I found it easier to strop in one direction at a time.

That is to say, pull the razor in one direction for one stroke, then instead of flipping on the spine and going back the other way, I lift the razor off the strop, go back to the start position and bring back down for another stroke.

Is it a bad idea to do, say, 10 strokes one way, 10 stokes the other way, then repeat as necessary?

Or is flipping the razor and doing conventional laps necessary?

Cheers.

I think it is better to do conventional laps, but it is probably not 100% necessary.

I have a theory that stropping is a bit like using an electrical degausser. It uses AC current to magnetize in one direction, then the other. As you move it slowly away from the object to be demagnetized, the reduced field strength means the object becomes magnetized by smaller and smaller amounts around the "zero point."

In a similar way, I think stropping bends the edge slightly past the straightest position. Then you flip it over and the edge bends back the opposite way. If you make the strokes lighter and lighter, the edge gets closer and closer to perfect straightness.

If my theory is right, then doing 10 strokes in the same direction will do little more than a single stroke, so is a waste of effort.

But it's just a theory, no real basis to it.

I’d agree with Ray most emphatically.

The one great thing about straight razor shaving is that you can develop what works best for you. I'm not going to disagree with our esteemed colleague, but strop the best way for you. The only real fundamental is the actual stropping technique. Ensure you do equal numbers of strokes in each direction. For me it's 20 laps on the linen followed by 60 laps on the leather. I use the tradional method, but that is works best for me.

If it works for you, you can stick with it, but I would venture to say that the more you get into that "wrong" routine, the harder it will be to learn to do it properly. I say go slowly doing it "right" and it will soon become locked into your muscle memory and you'll get faster and better. If you ever intend to learn to do it properly, I say start now, because there's no sense learning how to do it two ways, right and wrong.

I am one of those on the "it was done this way for a reason" side...

Actually the stropping action itself is rather easy to do, the only learning curve there really is comes in the flip... Once the flip is learned the rest is rather easy and speed builds quite fast, I just taught this to my Brother in Law in person two weeks ago, and the only part we had to truly work on was the mechanics of the flip, and how I was actually holding the razor to accomplish it... Hint; it is all in the edges of the tang, use the edges not the flats..



Ray that is a very interesting theory, and actually I think you might be on to something there.... My thinking is more along the change in angle as the razor is drawn and pushed....Time for another thread