Thread: 10 strokes one direction, 10 strokes back, repeat 6 times

Originally Posted by mparker762

Sounds like a good way to slice a strop

One way to look at this is it's just the "professional stroke" with a hone that the barber's manual recommends to avoid a frown long term, but it's heel leading rather than edge leading so it's safer than the professional stroke. If you roll the edge up (as if you were going to flip it) and then lift, there is really no more than usual risk of slicing the strop.

I actually find doing the same stroke 10 times in a row keeps me more focused than flipping it back and forth, but as we've all learned, the odds of slicing the strop go down pretty quickly no matter what you do if (a) you pay attention and (b) develop some muscle memory.

Originally Posted by loueedacat

One way to look at this is it's just the "professional stroke" with a hone that the barber's manual recommends to avoid a frown long term, but it's heel leading rather than edge leading so it's safer than the professional stroke. If you roll the edge up (as if you were going to flip it) and then lift, there is really no more than usual risk of slicing the strop.

Unless, on the second stroke after reversing direction, you absentmindedly let your muscle memory flip it the same way you did on the previous ten strokes, digging it into your strop. I think with this sort of stropping pattern that muscle memory actually increases the risk to your strop, because the stronger the muscle memory the more likely it is to carry over between sets. With the conventional stropping scheme it is slower to learn because it's a longer pattern, but it's the exact same pattern so once your muscles have it down you're safe. With your scheme you have two different patterns and you have to mentally switch between them, and it's that switch where I think the risk lies.

[QUOTE=mparker762;461005]Unless, on the second stroke after reversing direction, you absentmindedly let your muscle memory flip it the same way you did on the previous ten strokes, digging it into your strop. QUOTE]

but why would you do that?

all I can tell you is I haven't come close to scratching the strop, and I'm not particularly skilled nor particularly attentive. and I've never heard anyone raise issues with the professional honing stroke, even though it's exactly the same twist on normal honing muscle memory and actually a great deal more scary because you are edge leading on a stone.

anyway, different strokes for different folks [how's that for punny], but I'd try this before hypothetically eliminating it as a bad idea. It's really just not that hard, and it works for me and might be useful to others if constant flipping is a nuisance to their carpal tunnels or they have blades that give them fits on flipping.

Honestly, if you were anal retentive about this and always put the spine down first, lifted the edge first at the end, etc, it would work. However its probably a lot faster, safer and easier in the long run to just flip on the strop/learn to flip on the strop.