Thread: Crazy Question on Stropping

Originally Posted by rickboone

I've been watching videos on stropping, ready to tackle the task pretty soon. I see when you get moving that blade goes down pretty darn quickly towards your hand holding the strop.

I imagine it's quite easy to slice your hand there if you're not careful.

Because the stropping motion is done with the edge trailing, the blade is coming at your hand spine first, so cutting yourself would require some rather exceptional "reversal of fortune."

good luck, good stropping

Make sure you don't finish flipping the razor until you've reversed direction, or either your hand or strop will require some work.

Check out this 1961 barber manual excerpt on honing and stropping in the SRP Wiki here. The stropping section is in the last two pages. Note the suggestion to practice flipping the razor on the strop between the tip of the thumb and forefinger without bending the wrist and without doing the stroke.

Holding the tang between the tips of the fingers, they say, will give a better feel for using light pressure when stropping. Learning to flip the razor first means less chance of rounding the edge or damaging the strop. I found this manual very helpful in both my honing and my stropping.

I believe that:
Speed's fine but accuracy is final.

[Bill Jordan]

Also can be used about stropping. Get the technique down first, the speed will come. If you are super fast, but ruin your strop, you will feel like .