Quote Originally Posted by BKratchmer View Post
There needs to be a certain amount of force to bend the steel. Since this cannot come from downward friction, a critical momentum needs to be met to really effectively strop. It's why you buff with rouge on a large, fast wheel- it will cut so slowly otherwise that it would take exponentially longer to get the same effect. No more pressure, just more speed.

Wow, I couldn't disagree with this more.

No offense.

Stropping slowly works just fine. Assuming the downward pressure on the blade is equal, one slow stroke puts the same amount of force on the blade as a fast stroke. (As for buffing with rouge, it does not take exponentially longer with a slower wheel to get the same effect. A wheel that goes twice as fast takes about half the time to buff an object. Yes, I do a lot of buffing, and I have tried it.)

Not to say that stropping fast won't work if you do it accurately, but going slow also works just fine. I stropped slow for the first 8-10 years of straight razor shaving, and had no problems. I've sped up a bit over the past 5 or 6 years due to impatience, but don't get any better results. I still need the same number of strokes to get the blade the way I like it.