Uni-directional stropping?

I am a relatively recent convert from DE shaving to straights, and have been very happy with the results. I went with the conventional wisdom and bought an inexpensive filly strop (which I have been very happy with), and though I have put a few nicks in it, my stropping technique seems to get adequate results.

The nicks resulted from the transition from the down stroke to the up stroke. Experienced stroppers say to not alter the angle of the wrist, but rather roll the tang in the fingers. Most of the time I can do this, but occasionally I get things a bit out of kilter, get the timing wrong and a small nick or ineffective stroke is the result. In addition, trying to get a consistent X-stroke adds another level of dexterity that I sometimes struggle with.

So, I am trying another method. I get my fingers and wrist set and do 10 up strokes and then change and do 10 down strokes, maybe for a total of 40 or 50 laps. I find that this is quicker than doing the 10 up-to-down transition finger rolls that one normally does to to 10 conventional laps. So far it seems to work well.

What do you think? Can someone else give it a try to give an opinion?

This was discussed before maybe 1,5yr ago. I have no hints on what to search for. iirc it was just considered to be much wasted motion.

Maybe your trouble has some to do with the height of your mount or too loose scales???

or slow down just a little.

or continue

My advice to you would be to practice stropping with a butter knife or something, to get used to the motion of it without risking any nicks. Once you're happy with the motion then start stropping the razor. Focus especially on flipping the butter knife over between your fingers as you described.

I remember reading a thread on this topic and it was decided that the usual back and forth motion is preferable IIRC.

It really is just practice! :)

Nicking on the down to up transition is where I would miscue when I did. I used to sort of slap the blade down at that point where it was audible. The 1961 barber manual in the SRP help files suggests practicing flipping the razor without doing the stroke until you have it down well. When I worked on keeping the pressure on the spine and being light on the edge all through the stroke my problems went away for the most part.

Your idea will probably work but would be inefficient in comparison with the standard stropping method IMO. There is one school of thought that says heat generated by the friction of the blade against the linen/leather contributes to the sharpness/smoothness. I think the speed that eventually comes with practice in standard stropping helps the edge but I may be wrong.

If your learning it's best to learn the right way. it's hard to unlearn bad habits. I agree to just practice turning the razor in your hand without stropping until it becomes second nature and then try it on the strop.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

If your learning it's best to learn the right way. it's hard to unlearn bad habits.

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Hello, Goriuk:

Those are wise words from Thebigspendur. Learn to do it the right way from the beginning.

The world of straight razor shaving demands specific ways of doing things. These have passed on from one shaver to another, the teacher to the student. Although each individual shaver's method might be different from that of another, we all subscribe to certain basic elements.

Efficiency is imperative; shortcuts are chancy.

Regards,
Obie

Stropping does a lot of subtle things.
One of those is to work harden (my opinion) and pull the fine edge straight.

Stropping in one direction will not do either very well.

Having said that, as long are you are your own customer
and it works for you go for it.

As others indicated there is a "right way" that has
been refined over the years and it is unlikely that
your modification is better.

One corner case that may be giving you false positive
results is the use of a pasted strop after honing. You
may see a short term gain at the expense of long term
upkeep.

Obie said "Those are wise words from Thebigspendur. Learn to do it the right way from the beginning." and I agree with them.

Wise words already spoken...

My one and only great piece of stropping advice is this...

Pay attention to the spine, keep the spine moving evenly and lightly across the strop and the edge will do what it should..
Look at it more as pushing/pulling the spine than dragging the edge...

And I speak from experience because I didn't learn the right way and now I have a choice. I can continue doing it the wrong way though it works fine for me, or I can unlearn my bad habit and relearn stropping from scratch which I don't have an inclination to do at present.

I have wrist issues so don't like the flipping bit and played around with unidirectional stropping. I found it worked great but any lapse in concentration tended to lead to bad nicks on the strop.

My opinion: Trying to do an x-stroke pattern when just starting is gonna cause brain overload and strop cuts. I would perfect the blade roll and timing and worry about the x-pattern later. Some folks never do it anyway.

Thanks for your words of wisdom chaps. I'm not saying stropping 10 times up and then 10 times down is better (if it was, everyone would do it that way), but can anyone tell me why it isn't as good as the conventional up-down style.

I find I can do it very quickly, so I don't think lack of heat generation would be the problem. As for "efficiency", I find it more efficient to only do the flip once every 10 laps, instead of 10 times.

Again, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it is a better way - I'd just like to hear more theories as to why it isn't.

It works the same in my experience - just makes me more prone to nice the strop. If it works the same or better for you, by all means trust your own experience.

I could see their being value and stropping one and then the other to keep the fin balanced in the middle, rather than tilting it one way and then the other, but it didn't seem to be an issue when I did it. And there is plenty of precedent for doing 10 quick honing strokes one way and then 10 the other, and that removes more metal than stropping.

So I've never heard any reason why it wouldn't work wtih stropping, in my experience it works great with stropping - I just got tired of nicking my strop.

I just find I get into the back and forth motion pretty easily and that feels smooth and comfortable to me.

I agree with loueedacat that going 10 times one way then 10 the other might make you a little more likely to slice your strop because you might inadvertantly dig the edge in on the return trip.

That, and I'm hiding behind the fact that its been done that way for centuries and it works, so why change it..!

I'm pretty new myself, and found practicing with a butter knife very helpful. It allows you to work through your initial clumsyness without damaging either your professionally sharpened razor or your new strop.

It took me about 2-3 15 minutes sessions of practice before I had a comfortable spine roll and stroke and was confident I wasn't going to ruin razor or strop.

That said, it is a lot harder than it looks. You would think a simple running the razor up and down a strap of leather wouldn't be to complicated, but then you test the edge and find you really haven't done much. :(