Thread: My stropping technique.

I've been stropping for almost a week now and this is what I do.
1. I place the blade gently on the strop do a very fast stroke, stop, just shy of the flip, gently flip the razor on it's spine, do a fast stroke back, stop just shy of the flip, slowly flip, and repeat another 60 times or so. I know going fast during stropping is important, but I figuere the fast part matters most during the stroke.
2. With my razor in my right hand and my arm fixed to my side, I move my entire body with the blade along the strop by shifting my body weight from my left foot to my right foot. I ensure the left hand holding the strop dosn't let the strop slack.
I have a Filly for practice, but I am so confident using these technigues I occasionaly do 30 laps on my 3" Black Latigo. I didn't even think I would see the Latigo for another month or so let alone touch it with my Dovo.
Am I forming bad habits? Should I stick with this or change, to a style I see on the Wikki page? Does or did anyone else strop like this?

Rule #1 - Do what works for you.

That being said, I can't imagine this working well. You should really watch the stropping videos in the wiki.

Perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression from you, but it sounds like you're pretty much throwing your whole body forward and back; razor first. That's a recipe for disaster.

It also sounds like you're coming to a complete stop with the razor still on the strop. That is also a recipe for disaster. The slightest move in the wrong direction and you'll wreck the strop and your edge.

Stropping should be fluid and steady, not leaping forward and back with a razor.

Since you were the only one to respond to my question, you single handedly convinced me to conform.
You are right on both of accounts. I do throw my body weight into my stropping but I had taken Ki Aikido classes for a few years, that experience helps me control the motion. I also stop the blade while it still on the strop.
I am attempting to make it a more fluid motion, but I will not lie, I do feel like the way I used to strop, probably, shaved a month or two off my learning curve.

Take a look at the 1961 barber manual excerpt from the SRP Wiki here. The last couple of pages are concerned with stropping. Personally I prefer my strop waist high. This is equivalent to where the hook is on a Koken barber chair and what most pro barbers used as far as setting it up. I use a zip tie on a door knob.

The tang should be held between thumb and forefinger to allow the tactile feel to put light pressure on the edge and the wrist shoudn't turn. This is out of the manual.

Practicing flipping the razor on the strop until it becomes automatic without moving the arm is also recommended. I wish I had read all of this before I "learned" to strop.

I had a lot of bad habits to break but I succeeded in learning the correct technique. This assumes that the manual is correct and I think it is. IMO I would lose the body english.

Why do you believe it is important to strop fast during the stroke?

IMHO, going fast is a sure-fire way to get sloppy and ruin your edge. And I'm not aware that speed helps in any way.

Originally Posted by Kelby

Why do you believe it is important to strop fast during the stroke?

IMHO, going fast is a sure-fire way to get sloppy and ruin your edge. And I'm not aware that speed helps in any way.

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.

Believe it or not, I used to play the accordion. And believe it or not, that is relevant to this thread!

One of the tricky things to learn about playing the accordion is finger placement of the right hand (on the black and white piano-style keys). To a beginner (well to me at least when I was a beginner) it feels (felt) more natural to place the thumb behind the keyboard to give the right hand more positive control. And it is true that it helps. BUT, you can never learn to play the accordion well that way. You need to bite the bullet and use all five fingers on top of the keyboard.

The relevant point is: What is best is not always the easiest for a beginner to master. In the *long run*, after some training, what the experts tell you is best will be best.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Practicing flipping the razor on the strop until it becomes automatic

So, I wasn't completely wrong then.
Thank you for the link.
@ TexasBob. I am slowly trying, so I will do the best.

Originally Posted by natepaint

So, I wasn't completely wrong then.
Thank you for the link.
@ TexasBob. I am slowly trying, so I will do the best.

The link that Jimmy gave you is one of the best descriptions of how the strop stroke should be done. I think I am a fast reader, but a slow understander. I red this link a while back, and just didn't get it. In a recent conversation with Jimmy, he pointed out the part that went over my head. Make sure you understand the easyest part of this, and that is the part about the holding and placing of the razor.

The natural tendency is to place the bottom tang on the thumb pad and the top tang in the first joint of the index finger. Yep, that's how I was doing it. Holding the blade this way, and watching it as you stroke slowly, you will see that the blade can move toe up, heel up, left or right. If you do as the article suggests and hold the blade with the thumb pad on the top tang, and the index finger pad on the lower tang. Place the blade on the strop and make sure the spine is always flat, and move it along the strop slowly. You will feel the stability of the blade, and with a taunt strop, you won't roll the edge.

Start out slowly like this and make sure you start to feel the drag on the razor. It is that drag you are looking for. As you get better with it you can increase your speed. This isn't a race, and no one really cares how fast you do this. Find the most comfortable speed for you that works.

Keep at it, you will get it.


Ray

Originally Posted by BKratchmer

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.